President Barack Obama gave his first televised interview since taking office to Al-Arabiya, an Arabic satellite television station.
Al-Arabiya posted the transcript of the interview. He pledged to fulfill his promise to give a speech from a "Muslim capital" within his first one hundred days, but offered no details. He again presented the broad outlines of his foreign policy towards the region.
Some of the highlights:
- The President told the new Middle East envoy George Mitchell to "start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating -- in the past on some of these issues --and we don't always know all the factors that are involved."
- "Sending George Mitchell to the Middle East is fulfilling my campaign promise that we're not going to wait until the end of my administration to deal with Palestinian and Israeli peace, we're going to start now. It may take a long time to do, but we're going to do it now."
- He considers it "impossible for us to think only in terms of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and not think in terms of what's happening with Syria or Iran or Lebanon or Afghanistan and Pakistan."
- When asked about the sustainability of the two-state solution paradigm, the President said, "I think it is possible for us to see a Palestinian state -- I'm not going to put a time frame on it -- that is contiguous, that allows freedom of movement for its people, that allows for trade with other countries, that allows the creation of businesses and commerce so that people have a better life."
- Al-Qaeda is nervous about the Obama administration, he noted. By improving the condition of Arabs, the United States can expose their ideas as "bankrupt." He said, "There's no actions that they've (Al-Qaeda) taken that say a child in the Muslim world is getting a better education because of them, or has better health care because of them."
- On restoring Arab-US relations: "America was not born as a colonial power, and that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there's no reason why we can't restore that."
- He will avoid conflating those who criticize and oppose American policies with Al Qaeda: "you will I think see our administration be very clear in distinguishing between organizations like al Qaeda -- that espouse violence, espouse terror and act on it -- and people who may disagree with my administration and certain actions, or may have a particular viewpoint in terms of how their countries should develop."
- In terms of Iran, he opposes their nuclear ambitions, "But I do think that it is important for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to express very clearly where our differences are, but where there are potential avenues for progress. And we will over the next several months be laying out our general framework and approach."
