By most accounts, President Obama’s Cairo speech was grand. It was a break from the Bush rhetoric. Mr. Obama quoted the Koran; he spoke of past mistakes and of a common future.

So what has been the reaction from the so-called Muslim world?

For days I have searched the internet (in English) in hopes of finding some leader of a Muslim nation who was willing to grasp the olive branch held out by Mr. Obama.

The media was full of “person in the street” comments, especially from Muslims in western nations, but as near as I can tell the leaders of the Muslim world were all but silent.

The state-backed papers in the two Arab countries on Mr Obama’s tour, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, were positive; and the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader was negative (none of that a surprise).

But, not to worry, the Arab foreign ministers will hold an emergency meeting on June 17th to come up with a common Arab stance on U.S. President Barack Obama's speech.

According to the AP: “Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged a new American openness to ideas from abroad, especially the Muslim world, during a visit Wednesday to Indonesia.”

It will be interesting to see Secretary Clinton as see visits other Muslim countries; do they allow her the freedom of her culture, or will she follow their values and wear a hejab (head covering)?

Either way, it will be highly symbolic: Wearing one will show America’s willingness to submit to Islamic identity and morality, not wearing one would be seen as an affront to Muslims.

If Mrs. Clinton had been elected president, I wonder what she would have done?

“My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy”, President Obama said in an interview with the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya Network on January 26, 2009.

Did Americans attack the USS Cole? Did they attack Kuwait? Did they attack the Muslim world on 9-11?

It may seem fine to present “a humble and conciliatory face of America to the Islamic world” (Politico), but it is not without risks. A similarly young and inexperienced American president, John F. Kennedy, met with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and held out the humble hand of reconciliation to him.

As recounted in The New York Times (May 22, 2008):

Paul Nitze, the assistant secretary of defense, said the meeting was “just a disaster.”

Khrushchev agreed, noting that the youthful Kennedy was “too intelligent and too weak.”

Kennedy’s assessment of his own performance was no less severe…“He just beat the hell out of me. I’ve got a terrible problem if he thinks I’m inexperienced and have no guts. Until we remove those ideas we won’t get anywhere with him.”

Unfortunately, especially from America, being humble, kind and conciliatory is often seen as being weak.