'Not The Same America'.(World Affairs)(Interview)

The day after President Barack Obama's speech in Cairo offering a "new beginning" in relations between the United States and the Muslim world, NEWSWEEK'S Christopher Dickey sat down with the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, Prince Saud al-Faisal, to discuss the speech and its implications. Excerpts:

You've seen presidents-and promises for peace-come and go. Is there anything different about Obama?

WE haven't tested this yet, but he showed sincerity in his talk. Different people came away with different impressions, but for me it was positive, balanced, comprehensive and many parts of it were very personal and touching. It hit the right tone from the opening salutation, Assalaamu alaykum, to the quote from the Qur'an at the end.

President Obama is very good at atmospherics.

BUT the key point was that America is changing policy. It is not the same America. He talked about humility, not power. He talked about democracy--that the United States wished the world to be democratic--but is not going to force the world to be democratic. If he was looking for converts to his way of thinking, I think he achieved it with the audience there, and with audiences everywhere in the Arab and Muslim world.

People were looking for concrete statements.

We told him this when we saw him before the speech. But we did not expect him to be so specific. He called Israeli settlements in the West Bank "not legitimate"--and this is more important, and stronger, than "not legal," which has often been repeated. He could have done more on atomic weapons, because proliferation is not going to resolve itself.