Obama's speech was exceelent if one takes it off the existing Middle Eastern context. He talked about the inadmissibility of moslem extremism, but siad nothing about Israeli state terrorism that is really at the root of all terrorist acts in the region. He talked about two states but said nothing about Israel dismantling ALL settlements in the Plestinian lands. He talked about the unbreakabe friendship between the US and Israel, but nothing about how he is going to stop Israeli ambitions. He talked about removing the effects without mentioning the causes. In fact, it was just a smoothing out speech if one did'nt dwell on the fine implications of his very carefully chosen words. There was a message to the Arab and Moslem world. Where was the message to Israel? He must deal with his domestic Israel-first chauvinists to be able to do anything substantial about all the points he talked about. Will they let him proceed and follow his talk with a real walk? Highly unlikely.

Obama claimed, in this speech, that america's war in afghanistan was not a war of choice. However, america did not have to fight against Russia in afghanistan in the 80's, thus, doing so made it in fact, a war of choice.