Unlike Obama, Trump challenged the Muslim world to \u00ab\u00a0confront…the problem of Islamic extremism, and the Islamists, and Islamic terror.\u00a0\u00bb<\/b>
\nBut unlike Obama, who attempted to appease Islamic resentment of the West by admitting America\u2019s faults, Trump\u2019s speech in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Sunday emphasized terrorism and challenged the Arab and Muslim world to foster peace by \u201chonestly confronting the problem of Islamic extremism, and the Islamists, and Islamic terror of all kinds.\u201d
The first difference between the two speeches was the setting. Trump addressed a summit of Arab and Muslim leaders at a conference to deal with terrorism. Obama, by contrast, invited members of the Muslim Brotherhood to his address at Al-Azhar University in Cairo.
Trump rallied the nations of the region to deal with a problem in their midst; Obama gave legitimacy to a banned group associated with terror and extremist ideology.
Obama began his address by focusing on western guilt:
In contrast, Trump began by declaring that \u201cMuslim countries must take the lead in combating radicalization. He said that he was not there to lecture to others about how to worship, but to call for unity \u201cin pursuing the one goal: \u2026 to conquer extremism and vanquish the forces that terrorism brings with it every single time, \u201d singling out \u201cyoung Muslim men and women.\u201d
Trump went further, taking on \u201cterrorism and the ideology that drives it.\u201d He listed recent terror attacks in the U. S. and around the world, and noted that \u201cthe deadliest toll has been extracted from the innocent people of Arab and Muslim nations.\u201d The optimism of the region, he said, was \u201cheld at bay by bloodshed and terror.\u201d And he added: \u201cThere can be no co-existence with this violence.\u201d
Obama, too, had emphasized that many of the victims of groups like Al Qaeda were Muslim. Like Obama, Trump distanced terror from faith, suggesting terrorists falsely used the name of God, and implying that the problem was not limited to Islam, But Trump did not shy away from the link to Islam, whereas Obama sought to absolve Islam itself of any link with terrorism.
Obama said: \u201cIslam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism \u2013 it is an important part of promoting peace.\u201d Obama never even used the word \u201cterror.\u201d He simply referred to \u201cviolence against civilians\u201d by \u201cextremists, \u201d whom he never connected directly to Islam.
In contrast, Trump told the gathering in Saudi Arabia to \u201c [d] rive them [terrorists] out from your places of worship, \u201d and exhorted the nations present to make sure \u201cterrorists find no sanctuary on their soil.\u201d
Obama defended America to the Muslim world by emphasizing America\u2019s connection to Islam \u2014 almost describing the U. S. as a Muslim nation itself. \u201c [L] et there be no doubt: Islam is a part of America, \u201d Obama declared. He cited exaggerated population figures for Muslims in the U. S.: \u201cnearly seven million American Muslims in our country today, \u201d he claimed.
Trump, in contrast, praised the achievements of the Arab and Muslim world in the region itself, but did not try to remake America in Islam\u2019s image. Trump also spoke in a forthright manner about the persecution of Jews, whereas Obama irritated Israelis by claiming Israel was created because of the Holocaust.
Both presidents were gracious to their audience. Both downplayed the idea of interfering in the affairs of the Muslim world, unlike earlier administrations. Trump offered the Saudis the \u201cfriendship, and hope, and love\u201d of the American people, and praised his hosts as the guardians of \u201cthe two holiest sites in the Islamic faith.\u201d Trump also praised the arms deal he had reached with Saudi Arabia the day before, which he said would help both sides.
Obama was somewhat less focused on Egypt itself, but was effusive in his praise of Islam in general, crediting it \u2014 with some exaggeration \u2014 with making the European enlightenment possible, and with fostering religious tolerance.
Yet Trump was clear about the need to confront Iran as a common challenge to peace in the entire region. He even implied that regime change was an ultimate goal of U. S. policy toward Iran. Obama, in contrast, appeased Iran and accepted blame, publicly, for a \u201crole in the overthrow of a democratically-elected Iranian government\u201d in the 1950s.
Early media reports suggest that Trump\u2019s speech is being described as \u201cmoderate, \u201d because he did not use the signature phrase \u201cradical Islamic terror.\u201d That is not accurate: the principal objection to Obama\u2019s evasion was the absence of the word \u201cIslam, \u201d which Trump addressed directly. But if that is indeed how the speech was received, then Trump achieved something great indeed: identifying the eradication of Islamic terror as a \u201cmoderate\u201d value.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the \u201c most influential \u201d people in news media in 2016. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.<\/p>\n

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