A lot of anticipation is palpable relative to the upcoming Cairo speech that President Obama intends to deliver to the Muslim world from Cairo, Egypt. 

A very thoughtful analysis is provided here by the blog Diplomat of the Future.  I find this to always be a solid read even with its somewhat inaccessible to the layman academic tenor.

In this piece, the absurdity of Obama's likely speech and the similar view shared by the current British Foreign Secretary is highlighted ruthlessly.  In essence, "understanding", "compromise", and other euphemisms for greater cultural sensitivity border on the ridiculous.  As it states,

"Let us be clear: diplomacy and statecraft is at times a messy or indeed a nasty business. As the late great Max Weber pointed out above, if one is interested in savings souls, one should probably not enter politics. The ultimate, 'art of the possible', as the even more great Otto von Bismarck-Schonhausen once put it. The real issue as it relates to the Muslim world, indeed the troubled, ugly and not very appealing world outside of the USA, Canada, Japan (other parts of East Asia) and Europe, is how does one hold hands or co-operate with rulers who while not in the least democratic or tolerant, are: a)legitimate; b) not aggressive outside of their own borders...

The reality of the situation, is that due to a variety of differing and not very intelligent or cogent reasons, Western views and policies as they relate to the Muslim world are at best quixotic and at worst idiotic & simply mindless."

There really are major differences between cultures in the world that are not capable of being papered over despite the brilliance of those making the attempt.  America has a hard time accepting this.  Both Bush's "democracy" agenda and Obama's "respect" agenda are flawed because they assume a universal commonality between cultures that is not there. 

All humans want respect and to this extent there is at least some universal commonality.  The problem is, what illustrates this respect to one may be quite the opposite of what represents it to another.  At the end of the day I do not think President Obama will be all that much more effective at bridging these divides between the West and the Muslim world than President Bush.  

We should hope to simply manage these challenges and limit their potential for exploding in such a way as to permanently damage our interests.  Doing otherwise may  superficially make one "feel better" but it won't matter substantively. 

On the other hand, what political alternative does President Obama have?