Obama on Al-Arabiya: First Formal Interview As President With Arab TV Network (VIDEO)

[IndianaGreen]

Obama: "I have Muslim members in my family. I have lived in Muslim countries."

Obama On Al-Arabiya: First Formal Interview As President With Arab TV Network (VIDEO)

January 26, 2009 11:00 PM

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Barack Obama struck a note of foreign policy confidence Monday night, telling an Arabic news station that al Qaeda leaders and Osama bin Laden "seem nervous" now that they don't have George W. Bush as a recruiting tool.

In his first formal interview since taking office, the president spoke with the Dubai-based station Al Arabiya on topics pertinent to the Arab and Muslim worlds. Much of the interview was spent defining the new approach that the United States would implement in that region: respectfulness over divisiveness, listening over dictating, engagement over militarism. But the president drew the line when it came to terrorist organizations.

"Their ideas are bankrupt," he told host Hisham Melhem, when asked to respond to recent audio clips from al Qaeda leadership calling him various epithets. "There's no actions that they've 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."

Pressed later in the interview to comment on Bush's use of the term 'War On Terror,' and the implications that the phrase held, Obama once again distanced himself from his White House predecessor.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/26/al-arabiya-obama-does-fir_n_161087.html

[Chulanowa]

1. I thought al-Arabiya was an american-sponsored outlet...

Created to try to propagandize to the Arab world in the leadup to Oraq...

Well, whatever works I guess

[VADem11]

3. You're thinking about Alhurra

Al-Arabiya is not American sponsored. The Bush administration was pretty critical of it.

[thunder rising]

2. Dumped al Qaeda in the same group as Republicans. Fundies are fundies ...

[IndianaGreen]

4. Obama also spoke of treating others with respect

a far cry from the cowboy diplomacy preferred by Bush.

[EFerrari]

5. I must watch the whole interview. The clips I've seen are BRILLIANT.

[backscatter712]

6. Al Qaeda's reaction to Obama is entertaining.

Dammit, America's supposed to act like the Great Satan! Now they elect a President with an Arabic name, who doesn't act like a stereotyped villain, who's closing Gitmo and making gestures of friendship with the Muslim world! DON'T YOU KNOW WHAT THAT DOES TO RECRUITMENT?!

[pampango]

7. How will they react? They might think that an attack against the US or an embassy

would force Obama into a corner? Of course, it could also make them look bad to attack at a time when Obama is attempting to change the dynamic between the US and the Muslim world. They almost have to do something. It will be interesting to see if it is simply videos blasting Obama or something more violent.