by Arsalan Iftikhar

Editor’s Note: Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, founder of www.TheMuslimGuy.com and contributing editor for Islamica Magazine in Washington.

Arsalan Iftikhar | BIO
Founder, TheMuslimGuy.com

Echoing a key theme of his inauguration speech, President Barack Obama, during his first interview with an Arab news channel, told the Muslim world that he holds a world view based on the following principle:

“…You will be judged on what you’ve built, not what you’ve destroyed….”

After viewing the Al-Arabiya interview several times, some key quotes (fittingly) in bold:

On sending (former Senator) George Mitchell as Middle East Special Envoy: “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…”

“…And so what I told him is start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating…”

Well, isn’t that a nice departure from the foreign policy disasters and garbled rhetoric of George W. Bush? Although there was little substantive ‘policy’ discussed in the Al-Arabiya interview, the ‘tone’ and message marked a stark departure from our previous president.

Read the entire CNN Anderson Cooper 360 column at: http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/27/mr-obama-goes-to-al-arabiya/