Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says the Obama administration felt the need to pick an Arab country.
“Arabs are a minority of Muslims, but they have [a] disproportionate voice in Muslim life and Muslim jurisprudence ”¦ so they decided it has to be in an Arab city,” he says. “And if you start thinking about Arab cities, there aren’t a lot that leap off the page.”
Alterman says there was a process of elimination: Morocco, while more democratic than Egypt, is too peripheral; Jordan is too small; and Saudi Arabia would bring other problems, he says. “So, you end up going to Cairo, which has been an influential Arab and Islamic city for centuries.”
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Why The Obama Administration Picked Cairo
Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says the Obama administration felt the need to pick an Arab country.
“Arabs are a minority of Muslims, but they have [a] disproportionate voice in Muslim life and Muslim jurisprudence ”¦ so they decided it has to be in an Arab city,” he says. “And if you start thinking about Arab cities, there aren’t a lot that leap off the page.”
Alterman says there was a process of elimination: Morocco, while more democratic than Egypt, is too peripheral; Jordan is too small; and Saudi Arabia would bring other problems, he says. “So, you end up going to Cairo, which has been an influential Arab and Islamic city for centuries.”
Read or listen to it all.