BARACK OBAMA is planning to reach out to the Islamic world, seeking a rapprochement with Muslim opinion alienated by the Bush administration.
He believes a personal initiative will dramatise his wish to reassure Muslims, and intends to give a speech in an Islamic capital during his first 100 days in office as a sign of his engagement.
He has not said where. Egypt and Pakistan are obvious possibilities, but there has been speculation that he could choose Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, where he spent part of his childhood.
Obama will be sworn in as president with his full Muslim-sounding name of Barack Hussein Obama, in keeping with White House tradition.
His inauguration presents a “unique opportunity to reboot America’s image in the world and also in the Muslim world in particular”, he said in an interview.
Obama intends to prohibit the use of harsh interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, by the CIA, and to shut the secret “black site” prisons where terrorist suspects have been questioned. In future, interrogations will follow the rules set out in the US army field manual, which conform to the Geneva conventions. However, he is considering retaining a secret loophole, which would allow the CIA to use some methods outside the army rulebook.
One move that has been ruled out is the immediate closure of the Guantanamo detention centre for terrorist suspects, the focus of much Muslim anger.
Although Obama is committed to closing it - and the process has begun - he has hinted it could take as long as four years.
He said in a recent interview that he would consider it a failure if he had not closed the prison by the end of his first term in 2012. There had been speculation it could take a year because of problems in resettling potentially dangerous detainees, but not four years.
He believes a personal initiative will dramatise his wish to reassure Muslims, and intends to give a speech in an Islamic capital during his first 100 days in office as a sign of his engagement.
He has not said where. Egypt and Pakistan are obvious possibilities, but there has been speculation that he could choose Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, where he spent part of his childhood.
Obama will be sworn in as president with his full Muslim-sounding name of Barack Hussein Obama, in keeping with White House tradition.
His inauguration presents a “unique opportunity to reboot America’s image in the world and also in the Muslim world in particular”, he said in an interview.
Obama intends to prohibit the use of harsh interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, by the CIA, and to shut the secret “black site” prisons where terrorist suspects have been questioned. In future, interrogations will follow the rules set out in the US army field manual, which conform to the Geneva conventions. However, he is considering retaining a secret loophole, which would allow the CIA to use some methods outside the army rulebook.
One move that has been ruled out is the immediate closure of the Guantanamo detention centre for terrorist suspects, the focus of much Muslim anger.
Although Obama is committed to closing it - and the process has begun - he has hinted it could take as long as four years.
He said in a recent interview that he would consider it a failure if he had not closed the prison by the end of his first term in 2012. There had been speculation it could take a year because of problems in resettling potentially dangerous detainees, but not four years.