This speech is a joke. I guess his recent Osama triumph has clouded his sense of reality. Like his predecessors, Obama didn't once apologize for or even acknowledge the West's role in creating or maintaining the unjust, corrupt regimes that the people of the Middle East revolted against this spring. It's not all our fault, but we played a role, which was more often than not contrary to our supposed ideals and his "vision for the region." Just because colonialism formally ended decades ago doesn't absolve us of our recent meddling (which has claimed many more lives than 9/11, and the region is only marginally less corrupt and repressive - or some would argue worse).
Furthermore, what about America's responsibility for violence and human rights abuses during the War on Terror? People are not stupid. Ordinary, peaceful Muslims wouldn't passively or actively support killers like Osama and Al Qaeda unless the alternative (us and our brutal buddies like Israel, House of Saud, Mubarak, etc.) was just as bad. He makes it sound like the US has been the best friend to the Mideast peoples since day one. I guess now that our foolish fantasy of hegemony in the region is fading and we realize we can't sustain our obscene military presence there, we're trying to play nice in the hopes that the new popular governments won't be fiercely anti-Western? We missed the boat to offer true support to the democratic movements in most (if not all) of the countries in question, and now we're trying to rewrite the narrative like usual. It might work for John Q. ignorant American who only cares about gas being less than $4/gallon, but it won't work for the starving, beaten Muslims who are sick and tired of the BS.
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