WASHINGTON — President Obama has long billed today’s speech in Cairo as a vital address to skeptics among our enemies abroad in the Muslim world.
But perhaps even more important, it is an address to skeptics back home and among our allies.
While many around the world applaud Obama’s efforts to reach out to Muslims, many Americans and allies in Israel are watching carefully to see that the president does not give away the store in his search for improbable peace.
The main thing everyone is looking for is how far Obama goes in reaching out to the Muslim world.
On the one hand, opening dialogue with the Islamic world fulfills an explicit campaign promise that helped guarantee him victory in the election.
On the other, many Americans — even some of those who supported him in November — remain a bit wary of his Muslim connections.
Embracing his Muslim roots too lustily in Cairo would undo much of the careful work he did during the campaign to assure America where his unshakable loyalties lie.
The president can take with him all the armloads of olive branches he can carry and it will amount to nothing more than dry tinder if he fails to also make hard demands of leaders in the Muslim world.
It has to be direct, explicit and unyielding.
As in, if you want peace, begin by condemning Osama bin Laden and other terrorist plotters and help us round them all up so the world can bring them to justice for violating humanity — indeed, desecrating the Koran — by killing so many innocents.
The diciest part of Obama’s speech — the part that will be analyzed and re-analyzed for months to come — is that he cannot address peace in the Middle East without talking about the role Israel will play in it.
He must do what has thus far been impossible, perhaps because no one with the credibility in the Muslim world has done so.
Obama must tell them once and for all that Israel is here to stay and it’s time to join the modern, civilized world where innocents are no longer killed over religion.
churt@nypost.com