Expectations High as Muslim World Awaits Obama

CAIRO, Egypt, June 3, 2009 — -- The excitement surrounding President Obama's speech is almost palpable in the Egyptian capital.

At Cairo University, where Obama will deliver his address to the Muslim world Thursday, they are sprucing up the campus. At nearby shopping malls, they're selling Obama T-shirts, including one calling him "a new King Tut for the world."

Even on Arabic news channels, the president is getting unusually favorable coverage.

"You don't feel that people are angry at watching the American administration on screen," said Najwa Kassem, an anchor with Dubai-based Al-Arabiya. "They are ready to listen to him. They are waiting [to hear] what he's going to say."

But judging from the words of Muslims across the region this week, Obama faces a long list of demands.

Ingy Ah-tallah, a business major at the American University of Cairo, told us she would be listening for specific policy changes when she attends the speech Thursday.

"We don't want to hear promises, promises, promises," she said. "We want to hear an action plan or steps forward to solve problems that the Muslim world is continuously facing with the U.S."

In the West Bank, action means a Palestinian state.

"I want to hear him to say, we want two states for the two people, Palestinian and Israelis," said Ribhi Asfour, a shopkeeper.

In Pakistan, it's an end to American air strikes.

"They may talk in our favor, but inside their mission is to harm us and make us fight," one person said.

Obama is admired for reversing some of the most despised U.S. policies -- withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq and working to close Guantanamo Bay.

A poll by Ipsos found Muslims rate Obama more favorably than America itself, though still only a minority do so in half the countries surveyed.

In Cairo, Patience for Obama May Be Short

Even the choice of Cairo as the location of Obama's speech has sparked criticism. Activists here and elsewhere in the region have called it an implicit American endorsement of what they see as the Egyptian dictatorship.

The White House has invited some of the Egyptian government's fiercest opponents to the speech, including the Muslim Brotherhood, which is officially banned here.

Essam El-Erian, a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood, said Obama's challenge will be matching such gestures with real change.

"We are patient here for a long time. But we must see something by our eyes," he said. "He speaks many times but we need to see something on the ground."

In one of Cairo's oldest cafes, Mohammed, a visitor from Syria, said he'd give Obama one year.

"Talk has to stop and action has to start," he said.