PRESIDENT Obamas speech on the need to better US relations with the Muslim World is weak and unconvincing. He stressed the importance of securing peace in the Middle East and cited Pakistans indispensability in the US campaign against extremism. In his address, he also referred to the agenda he had discussed at Al-Azhar University in Cairo last year and pledged to reach out to the Muslim World. But in all conscience, he was beating about the bush. At a time when the war is killing and maiming people in Afghanistan and Iraq and US drones are butchering the tribal population in FATA, his words of support and the plan to improve relations is merely an eyewash. When the US campaign of persecution against Muslims is in full swing, how could he say that he is making the change? Muslims from around the world are dismayed at his failure to heal the West-Islam rift, especially as he had, at the time of his election, raised expectations of a radical change in the US hostile policy vis--vis the world of Islam. This feeling has intensified with the passage of time and for all the right reasons. Obamas oratorical skills are not in doubt. It has been proven time and again that he is a rhetorician par excellence and his speeches for that matter certainly are a different kettle of fish from Bushs schizophrenic utterances. In reality, however, it was just another President stepping into his predecessors shoes and in fact nothing more than a docile puppet controlled by powerful forces who hold sway over US foreign policy and establishment like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other such sinister lobbies. Conflicts plaguing Palestine, Kashmir and Afghanistan, which are at the heart of the Islam-West equation, have been callously ignored. While the creation of a separate homeland for the Palestinians remains a dream, Kashmir is the last issue he wants to discuss. What is needed is a fundamental change in US foreign policy. It is a battle of winning hearts and minds, while drones, missiles and forcible occupations will only provoke a deeper sense of hatred. Likewise, its aggressive stance towards progressive Muslim states like Iran over its peaceful nuclear programme will prove counterproductive. Most important, the Muslim Diaspora that has come under greater scrutiny in the US also speaks volumes about the chasm that now exists between the two civilizations. No new beginning can be expected from mere words.