Obama Should Thank Muslims

(NEWSER) - Most of America wasn’t even awake when it happened, but Barack Obama’s Cairo speech got people talking anyway, the Washington Post reports. The New York Times says Obama delivered a "sweeping and forceful—at times scolding and combative" message, which included what the Wall Street Journal called a “shrewd” statement about women's rights. But overall, it was part of Obama’s détente with the Muslim world, and earned a standing ovation from the crowd. More»

President to tackle US-Muslim relations on first Middle Eastern trip

(NEWSER) - President Obama will travel to Egypt next month to deliver a speech aimed at mending America's relationship with the Muslim world, McClatchy Newspapers reports. Egypt is a politically risky choice due to President Hosni Mubarak's heavy-handed autocratic rule, but a White House spokesman said the country "in many ways represents the heart of the Arab world" and that the speech would be pitched at ordinary Muslims, not their leaders. More»

Stops short of issuing formal apology

(NEWSER) - In a phone conversation eight days after NATO airstrikes killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers, President Obama today offered "condolences" for the deaths to Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari, the White House says. Diplomats had encouraged the president to apologize in an effort to soothe strained US-Pakistan relations, but Obama stopped short of offering a formal apology, the New York Times reports. More»

Balks against State Dept., says US has apologized enough

(NEWSER) - President Obama has decided against issuing a formal apology to Pakistan over a NATO airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, even as the State Department insists he must do so to salvage relations with Pakistan, officials tell the New York Times . The administration is instead backing the Defense Department, which thinks the US has apologized enough, and wants Obama to wait at least until its internal investigation of the incident is complete. More»

Christopher Hitchens thinks it's time to call Pakistan what it is: an enemy

(NEWSER) - Last week, Admiral Mike Mullen called out Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence agency “as the most adroit double-dealing profiteer from terrorism in the entire region,” Christopher Hitchens writes for Slate . Mullen accused Pakistan of orchestrating the attack on the US embassy in Kabul, and Hitchens believes him; after all, there’s no reason Mullen would lie about such a thing. “It makes us look like fools and suckers, which is what we have become." More»