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The Speech (the White House hopes) Heard 'Round the World: a Preview of President Obama's Speech to the Muslim World

June 03, 2009 5:55 PM

ABC News' Jake Tapper and Sunlen Miller report: The President is still working on the final draft of the speech to the Muslim world, senior White House officials told reporters today.

“For the last week he's really just been frequently holed up with his draft and editing it very heavily,” Ben Rhodes, one of his speechwriters said this afternoon, “he tends to work on these things to the wire.”

The officials previewed President Obama’s much-anticipated speech at Cairo University in Egypt tomorrow, which they said would run about 45 minutes in length.

The President “cast a wide net” within the US government and outside the US government in seeking advice for what to say, aides said.

“We talked to a broad range of experts in the government, but also in Washington and beyond,” Rhodes said, adding that the president “was very adamant that that include Muslim Americans; there's a great number of Muslims who work in very important positions in the U.S. government on some of these issues. And he got engaged in this at a very early point and has basically provided all of the vision for what should be in the speech and a lot of the content.”

Administration officials stressed repeatedly that the President sees the speech as an opportunity to “continue a dialogue” he’s had since the inauguration with the Muslim world, referencing his first interview as President to Al Arabiya, his video message to Iranians celebrating Nowruz, and his speech in Turkey as proof he wants to “really start a new chapter of engagement between the Unites States and the Muslim world.”

The president has been discussing such a plan since August 2007, when during a foreign policy speech he talked about launching a program of public diplomacy. “As President, I will lead this effort,” then-Sen. Obama said. “In the first 100 days of my Administration, I will travel to a major Islamic forum and deliver an address to redefine our struggle. I will make clear that we are not at war with Islam, that we will stand with those who are willing to stand up for their future, and that we need their effort to defeat the prophets of hate and violence. I will speak directly to that child who looks up at that helicopter, and my message will be clear: ‘You matter to us. Your future is our future. And our moment is now.’”

Officials today highlighted that the president would use the foundation of “mutual respect” and “mutual interest” to speak “very openly and candidly” about a range of issues that have “caused some tensions” between the US and the Muslim world.

“To begin with,” Rhodes said, “I think he'll take on directly some of the misperceptions that may have emerged as well as some of the differences that have emerged. I think he'll acknowledge the need for us to get to know each other better. As he has said, he'll, for instance, discuss the relationship between Islam and America within America, particularly in light of the contributions of American Muslims.”

National Security Council spokesman Denis McDonough added that the takeaway would be for “the Arab and Muslim worlds to get to know a little bit more about America” and “America to get to know a little bit more about the Arab and Muslim worlds.”

The president will broadly address violent extremism, the ongoing wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the broader Arab-Israeli issue.

The president will talk broadly about democracy and human rights.

He will also talk specifically about issues that matter in people’s lives - economic development, education, health care, science, and technology.

“He will be addressing some specific initiatives in areas like health and education and development," Rhodes said, a matter the president says has often been overlooked, “When you discuss mutual interests between the United States and the Muslim world, as the President has, that of course pertains to issues of peace and security, but it also pertains to opportunity and innovation and the ability for people to pursue a better life.”

Asked if he will address the Muslim ties in his family, mainly his father’s upbringing, senior adviser David Axelrod said “I don’t think there’s any question that he has a unique background that has value, not just in and of itself, but also because it opens the door of possibility, the door of understanding.”

Axelrod said the president’s “credibility” to reach out to the Muslim world “flows from that.”

The officials said that after the speech further communication will come with the Muslim world, that this is the step in the process of engagement and stressed that one speech alone will not solve all of the problems.

“This is not a one-time event,” McDonough said, “This is obviously a bit more high profile, but it is part of that continued dialogue that has to take place. All our problems and all of our outreach efforts are not going to either be solved or culminated in one speech. And I think that's the way the President certainly looks at it. “

“There has been a breach, an undeniable breach between American Islamic world and that breach has been years in the making, " Axelrod added, "It's not going to be reversed with one speech, it’s not going to be revered perhaps in one administration. But the president is a strong believer in open, honest dialogue."

In terms of the Mid East peace process, the President will not lay out a detailed plan, but will rather president what he thinks needs to be done on all sides, and how he personally views the conflict.

“What you'll see is a robust discussion of how to make progress and how to finally break this stalemate,” Rhodes said, “ without getting into too much, some of these things are things that have already been agreed to; they're things that are responsibilities that -- under the road map, for instance. So that's how I would draw that distinction. I mean, in a sense that these responsibilities will lead to peace, he will be addressing how to achieve peace. In the sense that he's going to revise dramatically those responsibilities.”

Asked if members of the Muslim Brotherhood would be in the audience during tomorrow’s speech, there was a bit of hedging, with administration officials opting to say that the President wanted to speak to “the full range of political representation in Egypt and really across the Muslim world,” but not confirming the Muslim Brotherhood would be there. McDonough said that invitations were made not only by the State Department but the embassy in Cairo and the Egyptian government had a role in identifying people to attend.

The tech-friendly Obama administration will distribute the President’s speech in multiple ways.

Callers world wide can register to receive free text messages of the speech in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and English, with the option to text feedback to the State Department afterwards. The State Department will collect and post that feedback on the website www.america.gov/sms/html. The speech will be webcast live on www.whitehouse.gov, and there will be links to fully translated transcript of the speech in 13 different languages.

In addition the full speech, the speech excerpts, and videos with translations will be put on the White House’s You Tube site, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter accounts.  On those social networking sites, subscribers can live chat and watch the video live. They also worked to identify “new social networking sites” like Orkut, a site that is popular in South Asia for a farther outreach.

“Obviously I think we have a fairly sophisticated, in general, outreach program that uses some of these tools,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, “I would very much characterize the efforts that are being undertaken here as far broader; again, through either setting up special links on these social networking pages to draw -- to not just draw people into see the speech, but also to discuss it”

The administration officials said they were “struck” by the demand for the speech, and that the State Department had received numerous requests by world embassies to get access and translation of the speech.

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