Cairo address a chance to drive out Bush’s ghost

Fresh asphalt gleams on the palm-lined avenue leading to Cairo University, where Barack Obama, the US president, is to deliver his eagerly anticipated address to the Muslim world on Thursday.

Workers have been busy scrubbing pavements and anything else likely to be seen by Mr Obama as he arrives to make a speech intended to scrape away from US-Muslim relations the thick grime of mistrust accumulated over the eight years in which George W. Bush was president.

“Events like this do not happen frequently in international relations,” said Abdel Moneim Said, head of the Cairo-based Al Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. “This is as big as Nixon’s visit to China. After eight years of talk about the clash of civilisations, this guy comes to an Islamic country to make a point about our shared humanity.”