What Obama will not say

My new column in al-Masri al-Youm, on Obama's forthcoming speech, is here. I make the safe bet that Obama's speech won't blow anyone's socks off. An excerpt:

To be sure, Obama's speech will include an homage to the Tunisians and Egyptians and Libyans and Syrians and others who rose up or are still rising up against their dictators. It will include a pious call for a return to negotiations in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. It will promise American support for democracy in the region. But I doubt it will include a frank apology for having been part of the problem of the Arab world's enduring autocracy.

It will not acknowledge that America's Middle Eastern empire, with its ensuing focus on stability (with the occasional dash of creative destruction), is one important reason for regional dysfunction. The US cannot and should not be expected to intervene in every one of the region's uprisings, but Obama will not pledge to at least do no evil. He will not announce plans for the withdrawal of the US Navy Fifth Fleet from Bahrain, whose al-Khalifa dynasty now make for an embarrassing ally. Instead, he will probably choose to concentrate on Syria, a more convenient example of bloody repression. He will not recognize that America's closest Arab ally in the region, Saudi Arabia, now seeks to put out the flame of revolution he will no doubt praise.

Obama will certainly not acknowledge that, in the absence of any viable peace process, the best course would be to at least respect international law and the legitimacy of the principle of national self-determination. But that would mean backing the Palestinian Authority's efforts at the United Nations to gain recognition of its right to sovereignty. It might also mean beginning to ask what, if the two-state solution is unattainable, the alternative might be.