President Obama will make some news in his video address to the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha, announcing a special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
With 57 member states on four continents, the OIC is the second largest inter-governmental organization after the United Nations. It bills itself as “the collective voice of the Muslim world” working to “safeguard and protect the interests of the Muslim world in the spirit of promoting international peace and harmony among various people of the world.”
A senior administration official tells that “is just the latest in ongoing efforts out of Cairo” — the speech to the Muslim world President Obama gave in Cairo, Egypt, in March 2009 — “to make sure we are continuing a key priority of the president’s: to very clearly tell America’s story, particularly in light of all the lies told about us by our enemies, particularly al Qaeda.”
Sources say the special envoy will be Rashad Hussain, who currently serves as deputy associate counsel to President Obama in the White House Counsel’s office.
A former trial attorney at the Justice Department and clerk to Damon J. Keith on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Hussain is a devout Muslim and helped inform the speech President Obama gave in Cairo — particularly with the speech’s references to the history of Islam and the Koran, and its general tone.
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