J. Scott Carpenter, the former deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs and the current director of the Washington Institute for Near East Studies, noted that the Riyadh and Cairo visits arrive just two days before the Lebanese elections and two months before elections in Iran.
“The president will focus on reaching out to those electorates,” Carpenter said, adding that President Obama needed Riyadh and Cairo as mediators in the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
Carpenter said that Obama announced prior to taking office that he sought improved relations with the Islamic World and that analyses suggested his speech in Cairo would address the president’s efforts to communicate with the Islamic World, the closing of Guantanamo detention center and the new US administration’s vision on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Carpenter added that Obama’s speech would seek to press Israel toward a solution for the refugees’ right to return and a halt in the building of settlements.
