Obama gave a remarkably brave speech in Cairo yesterday; braver than most non-Americans probably realize. He got a standing ovation in Cairo, Egypt. In Cairo, Illinois?  I'm not so sure it will play well; Americans named many their cities after early centers of Western Civilization, they don't respect their contemporary populations. 

He began by saying he would follow the command in the Quran: speak the truth and love God. What he said in public would be the same thing he said in private, to government leaders. Obama, in this speech, as in his speech on race, clearly and plainly discusses the past and the horrors that are part of our historical  legacy. He says we can go beyond that. We're better than we think we are. We can view our differences with tolerance and celebrate our similarities. He emphasized the shared values of Christianity, Islam and Judaism: all religions, he insisted, of peace.

He gave a history of Islam and its contributions to science, its religious tolerance, the contributions of Muslims to the United States. All very true, based on history: he could have given another history, more discreditable, equally true. He could do the same thing for Christianity and Judaism. People are worshipers and they cherry pick the world's great religions: they can find something to justify most actions, good and bad. (The fault lies not in our gods but in ourselves.) 

Another brave thing for Obama to do. During his campaign, he was attacked as a Muslim. He said he wasn't. He was also attacked for his Christian minister's speeches. Cognitive dissonance doesn't bother the religious right in the United States.

Obama discussed six issues that have caused conflict between the United States and the Islamic world. He was remarkably frank, as he said he would be, and admitted to American past actions that were wrong. (That won't play well at home either.) The United States has no right to intervene in the government of another country, as we did in the early fifties in Iran. He discussed Iran: any country has the right to use nuclear power for peaceful purposes. The Two State solution for Palestine and Israel must be enforced. He used the term 'occupied territories' which US presidents have not used. Any member of the United Nations agrees that land occupied in war will not be annexed.

It was Obama at his best: as accurate and rational a description of the issue as he can do, then an appeal to compromise. Nobody gets everything they want, everybody gets something, everyone benefits. His experience as a community organizer is apparent. So is the reason why a lot of people supported him and his popularity world-wide: we can be better than we are, more generous, and intractable problems are not intractable.

My husband and I watched Obama's speech in Cairo on the BBC broadcast live - as he gave it. It lasted an hour, was punctuated with clapping and ended to a standing ovation. The initial reaction from the BBC commentator: a great speech, as good as Obama's speech on race during the primary, and as important. One of the great speeches in American political history.

We checked the reaction on Al Jazeera: the commentator from Hamas - a Martin Luther King moment; from an Israeli diplomat: a lot of Israelis, if not those in government now, agree with what he said. The commentator from Iran said politicians and the religious leadership were suspicious but the ordinary people in Iran would love the speech - would see a possibility of normal relations with Washington.  The reporter from Washington D.C. advised the rest to take off the rose tinted glasses. We knew he was a great orator, but where are the specifics? Obama is not George W. Bush, leading an Imperial America that took what it wanted by force. But Obama is still a leader of Imperial America and he may use soft power - advancing American's interests through diplomacy, but still should be distrusted.

The commentator in charge of the Al Jazeera assessment team said for a moment, let us keep the rose tinted glasses on. And is a speech the place for specifics? It set a mood - mood that emphasized the common aims and values that unite people rather than divide them. Why not, just for a moment, believe that is possible? It's not necessary to pick over and analyze everything.

Fox News, of course, did not like the speech. They didn't like the security implications of abiding by the international agreements controlling nuclear weapons, they didn't like Obama's acknowledgment that the US had helped overthrow a democratically elected government in Iran in the early fifties. They insisted that Islam was a religion brought by the sword, with nothing peaceful about it. (Unlike Obama's three-fold potted history of the good points, they ignored the Crusades and Inquisition.)

The journalistic effervescence had evaporated by John Snow's Channel Four News. It was analyze and interview. In general, there was still a very positive reaction to the speech. The second thoughts were reasonable - a man in the Occupied Territories (a term used by Obama in his speech - and a very significant usage - said he and his family were living in a tent because the Israeli Army bulldozed their house, their village. What was Obama going to do about that? An Israeli from one of the settlements said they weren't leaving - who was going to make them? Not Israel or its government. Someone else pointed out, in reference to arms control, that the United States spent more money on arms than all the rest of the world combined. Who was Obama to lecture anyone?

This morning's Guardian gave its own assessment and more reaction from Islamic political leaders and commentators. Democratic activists in Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia were given little encouragement. Musani Habib, opponent of Hosni Mubarak's authoritarian regime in Egypt, said it was essentially a 'public relations address'.

All the criticisms are valid, accurate, true - whatever word you want. The appeal of the speech is greater than the sum of its parts and the statements it makes. This is a speech, not a plan of action. As a speech, it changed the tone of the debate. It suggested a way of dealing with one and other on the basis of mutual respect rather than asymmetric power relations. My husband said it reminded him of The Gettysburg Address. Lincoln's speech of 268 words summed up American political values - America at its best - eloquently, beautifully and very simply. Lincoln's speech was an elegy. Obama's speech was an hour long address with different goals - and no American school child will ever memorize it. The similarity lies, I think, in its appeal to both head and heart and to its basis in a kind of moral rationalism. 

Obama pointed out that almost everyone wants the same things: to live peacefully, securely, with adequate resources. Why can't we do it?

Insh'Allah, God willing, maybe we can... like the commentator from Al Jazeera, I’d like to keep the rose tinted glasses on for just a little while. Putting things under a microscope gives a detailed enlarged way of looking at a specific object. If we want a broad view, an attempt to see where we are going and how to get there,  glasses, even if rose tinted, help us see more clearly. Without the broad view, the microscope is not intelligible Maybe it’s naive to believe that human beings can be both rational and self-sacrificing, but it’s the best chance we’ve got.

Like the Medicine Show quack, Obama is peddling hope. Remember: sometimes the tonic actually works and the placebo effect is an important phenomena.

The future seems better  after the speech than before and anything that can do that is one hell of a speech.