Cairo, Egypt StartAgain/Flickr/Creative Commons

It's a shame that President Obama chose Egypt, home to an aging autocrat who embodies the antithesis of hope and change, as the venue for this speech. And it's a mistake to persist in lumping one of the most diverse groups of people into the catch-all "Muslim world," as if a shared religion was the most important defining attribute. Though it seems clear that Cairo was chosen because Egypt's government has made peace with Israel and is taking a harder line on Iran and its proxies, it's a choice that underscores everything that has always been wrong with American Middle East policy: one-stop policy shopping with local dictators.

By most accounts, this speech, at its core, will be about persuading the governments of the region to do something--in the case of Iran, to accept Obama's blandishments; Syria, to reject Iran; Palestine, to make sacrifices for peace. But these governments are the problem, not the solution. Instead of addressing governments, Obama should focus on the people of the Arab and Persian Middle East--Sunni, Shiite and Christian--whose governments fail to represent them every day, in every way. They may (and do) tell pollsters that their greatest angst is that there is no state of Palestine, but that is because they cannot tell anyone that it is in their own lack of freedom, opportunity or hope.

Danielle Pletka is the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at AEI.