June 5 (Bloomberg) -- Senator Richard Lugar praised President Barack Obama’s Cairo address to the Muslim world as a “signal achievement” and dismissed Republican criticism that the speech was too apologetic.
The speech was important and necessary, said Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, noting a “lack of sympathy for our country” in many Muslim nations.
“We probably as Americans need to give a lot of speeches in the Arab world,” the Indiana senator said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing this weekend. Obama’s language on Iran was tough enough and was meant to reassure Arab countries, which also are concerned about Iran’s quest to acquire nuclear weapons, Lugar said.
Still, Lugar said he doubted that Obama’s speech would have much influence on the Middle East peace process or hasten the creation of a Palestinian state.
“It doesn’t really change materially things on the ground,” Lugar said.
Neither the Israeli nor Palestinian governments are really “in the mood” to make a compromise, he said.
On a domestic issue, Lugar said federal appellate judge Sonia Sotomayor has “excellent qualifications” to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. He recalled his own support for her when she was elevated from a district court to an appellate court by then-President Bill Clinton in 1998.
The 59 Democratic senators are all expected to support her. And if the seven senators who voted for her 11 years ago don’t change their vote, she will be “confirmed fairly easily,” Lugar said
Piling On’
Some of the Republican criticism of Obama’s speech at Cairo University yesterday amounted to “piling on,” Lugar said.
Fulfilling a campaign promise to address the Muslim world, Obama pledged to “seek a new beginning” for the U.S. and followers of Islam, calling on people in both societies to find common ground and end a “cycle of suspicion and discord.”
While Obama called the U.S. bond with Israel “unbreakable” and insisted that Hamas, the Islamic group that rules Gaza, must stop all violence against Israelis, Obama said Israel must stop expanding its West Bank settlements and recognize Palestinian aspirations for statehood.
House Minority Leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said yesterday that Obama was placing
“equal blame” on the Israelis and the Palestinians and that Israelis don’t “deserve to be put in the same playpen with terrorists.”
Lugar rejected those arguments and said Obama “attempted to strike some of the right notes rhetorically.” ‘Balanced, Nuanced’
Obama attempted to “find a balanced, nuanced” position on the Middle East, Lugar said, adding that such an approach runs risks because “whichever group feels most aggrieved will feel that the president” doesn’t understand their point of view.
On Iran, he said Obama was “attempting to guide Arab nations at a time they feel fearful” of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
In his speech, Obama reaffirmed longstanding U.S. policy, saying any country, including Iran, “should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”
Lugar called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s position on settlements “unyielding” and lamented that neither side appears ready to negotiate.
“Even though the speech was very important in Cairo,” it coincides with the formation of a new government in Israel, making it less likely to “get into a two-state solution situation,” Lugar said.
‘Fractionated Status’
The Palestinians “are still in a fractionated status” and are not “in a position to do much two-state negotiating,” Lugar said.
Obama, however, still has time to press his case for peace. “The president has four years,” unlike the pushes Clinton and George W. Bush made as their presidencies were ending, Lugar said.
On North Korea, Lugar said that Kim Jong-Il tested another nuclear weapon to herald the selection of his youngest son to be the country’s next leader.
The recent satellite-bearing missile launch and nuclear test “may have been necessary for Kim Jong-Il as he thought about this transition,” Lugar said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Hans Nichols in Washington at hnichols2@bloomberg.net
http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20090605/pl_bloomberg/anr10rbcgdeq
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