In the past, a cynic knew the price of everything and the value of nothing; but today, he has forgotten even the price, while a sceptic is only a hardworking cynic who has graduated; and even if he knows the value of everything, he won't care.

Fortunately for the world, this is a very bad time for sceptics and a tragedy for cynics. And on one issue and one person-US President Barack Obama at least-the cynics and skeptics had been conclusively proved wrong.

They said he couldn't win the primaries. And he won. They said he wouldn't win the secondaries. And he won. They said he couldn't heal the rift in the Democratic Party. And he did. They said he might not choose the right person for vice president or the right people for subordinates. And he seemed to have chosen the best. They said he couldn't lead America and the world. A fortnight ago the world had a chance to see whether indeed he could or couldn't.

Unfortunately, he came onto the world stage with a groundswell of national and international support-even euphoria-but is morally crippled. America's power, alas, is today only military: its moral component has been lost in the pursuit of unjust battles and unwinnable wars, in unconditional support for an aggressor-state like Israel, in support for undemocratic despots even as it lectures the world on the virtues of democracy, in its opposition to the aspirations of others that, because it couldn't understand, it wrongly thought a threat; and in its waging even the right battles wrongly.

Under the banner of combative Republicanism, hoisted by trigger-happy neo-conservatives, and in the shadow of a new world order being foisted on the world, the US lost the war and with it the moral leadership of the world; and, now, under the weight of not unconnected Wall Street greed, its financial underbelly has been exposed, and unless something drastic is done, it may lose the financial leadership as well. A crisis of confidence is unfolding in a largely leaderless world; and America has become a military power made impotent by unwinnable conflicts, a moral giant crippled by a multiplicity of credibility gaps.

What is required to rescue the world is some piece of brilliant, bold and inventive statesmanlike brinkmanship; and that is what the world expects of the West-a Bismarck, a Garibaldi or an internationalized version of De Gaulle? But for someone with a nail in hand, the solution for every problem begins to look like a hammer. For Bush, the gun was the answer. And, firing on all cylinders, he went about shooting his way-and just see where it has landed the United States. For Obama, the half-hearted answer is dialogue. And right now he is out there talking, winning, and beginning to lead, the world-with charm, with cold logic, with good sense-and with eloquence.

But the architecture of the international system-its political and financial institutions-is stronger than can be demolished by the force of eloquence alone or by the mere good intentions of a US president. Nonetheless, for a forlorn world, it has become a promising starting point. Perhaps it is no exaggeration to say the most reassuring words for the world to have been uttered by an American president are his promise to fight for 'a nuclear free world.' And what a world of difference there is between this sincere, outstretched hand and former US President George Bush's itchy finger tightened on the trigger! And then, all so suddenly, after more than six decades the world becomes a much safer place.

Ever since the start of the Manhattan Project, when so-called scientific geniuses bent science in double obeisance before power, science lost its innocence and the world its peace. Scientists, especially the theoretical physicists of that era, were no longer in search of knowledge or guided purely by the spirit of scientific inquiry. They went after intellectual power for self and military power for their patrons; and scientific enterprise became complicit in all the crimes committed in the pursuit after national power. Albert Einstein was acting the harlot of science in his undisguised solicitation of a powerful consenting partner-US President Franklin Roosevelt; and, like all illicit affairs, this liaison was arranged in the dark by middlemen-acquaintances.

This is no diatribe against knowledge: nuclear physics is a legitimate field of inquiry and nuclear power a thing to be exploited; but the manufacture of nuclear bombs should be recognized and treated for what it is-a crime against humanity. And Roosevelt and all those scientists of the Manhattan Project should be remembered, not as statesmen and Nobel Prize winners, but as people who committed the most horrendous crime against humanity in the twentieth century.

Obama admitted that America was the only power to have used nuclear weapons, but he should have added that it is also the only power that is likely ever to use it again. Two more Bushes, for instance, and the world would probably have imploded in a mutually assured destructive nuclear Armageddon. In a way, by the admission of its president, America is the only real threat to world peace.

But planning to save the world from the threat of a nuclear war is but solution for just one problem. Obama's real problem is not a world that has become anti-American, and it is not even that legacy left behind by Bush which was what fueled this anti-Americanism. The world is forgiving and that Bush legacy will soon be forgotten. As far as the Muslim World is concerned, Obama's real and perhaps only problem is the State of Israel. And Obama knows it. Who doesn't?

However, in baking his Turkish Islamic cake, he forgot the icing; and, instead of by the horns, in desperation, he took his bull by the tail. And he kept mute, while silence is not an option; and, unfortunately, there are no half-measures in telling the truth, just as there should be no half-truths in taking measures to set the world right. For the Muslim World, that eloquent address in Turkey rang hollow for that which it omitted. Israel.

Not without reason. Telling the truth about America's relations with Israel or the fact that it is the cause of all the anti-Americanism would lead him to clash head-on with the all-powerful lobby and make him have to contend with media hostility. But speaking that type of business-as-usual tongue-in-cheek would almost certainly lead to an abrupt rejection of that extended arm even before it was fully stretched out. And it is a hand the Muslim World wishes to, and should, shake.

But Israel, that albatross hanging on the necks of all American presidents, that veritable strategic liability for America that, out of fear, it treats as a treasured asset, will not allow the handshake. Has it now fallen to the lot of Obama to terminate this relationship and lead America onto the path beaten for it by its Founding Fathers? But the statesmanship that will triumph over expediency can't begin with silence over the most crucial issue. In the end, whatever its president does or doesn't, America must make the choice between Israel and the Muslim World.

And If, as Obama said, the US really felt threatened by Iran's nuclear programme, which is still at the stage of development-for peaceful energy use, according to the Iranians, and for military purposes, according to the US; how much more threatened then would Iran and the Muslim World feel by Israel's nuclear programme, which already has a stockpile of 200 nuclear bombs; and is, going by its character, for aggressive military use, possessed as it is by a state that is not even signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and led by politicians who were not bound by any known codes of civilized international behavior.

But the threat felt by the world is not limited to nuclear blackmail; the potential for it is present in everything that is going on. It is there in the international financial system, it is there in the character of international commerce and in the terms of world trade; it is there in the despoliation of the environment and it is there in the double standards of the emerging international criminal justice system. In such a situation, it is difficult to reassure the Muslim World; but, greatly daring, Obama has made the attempt.

'I know that the trust that binds us has been strained, and I know that the strain is shared in many places where the Muslim faith is practiced. Our focus will be on what we can do, in partnership with people across the Muslim World, to advance our common hopes and our common dreams. And when people look back, let it be said of America that we extended the hand of friendship,' President Obama said. 'Let me say this as clearly as I can: the United States is not, and will never be at war with Islam.'

Oh yes, Mr. President, here two billion Muslims join the cynics and skeptics and think you already are, because your predecessor has been. But the choice to continue or stop the war is yours. And you know it.