Nice piece, but beyond the playing nice with a loyal Arab nation he missed this important nuance.
The president has to walk a narrow line between 1) convincing the Muslim world that this is a War on Terror as opposed to a War on Islam and 2) maintaining national security. On this issue he was really in a Catch-22, since he really couldn't explain this logic publicly for fear of showing his hand to the Muslim world- This ultimately is a War on Islam.
The west cannot afford to fight 1.2 billion Muslims now, so the best hope is to "divide and conquer" ala Julius Caesar vs. the Celts in the 1st century BC and many others since then. To that end, the president is currently going after the more radical elements of Islam (terrorists) with the WOT with the hope of westernizing future generations of Muslims given the time and access to do so. In the mean time he tries to encourage the more moderate Islamic nations (like UAE) and treating them fairly in trade is one way to do that.
This strategy is truly our only hope unless we're prepared to engage in mass genocide. You have undoubtedly noted how easy it is to rally the relatively uneducated Muslim masses into a violent frenzy over the silly cartoon issue and I expect they would do far worse if they knew the west were engaged in a War on Islam. The Muslim culture is not easily assimilated into a western society, so this will be a supremely difficult challenge. If we can't figure out how to do it, we're doomed to death by submission, dhimmitude (as we're seeing indications of in Europe), or a lot of innocent blood on our hands.
Finally, the RATS saw an opportunity to play political chicken with an issue prior to the midterm election and got most pubbies to play along. As this blog points out "Follow the money and you'll find the truth." Click here!