Reply #2: BBC: US President Obama condemns plans to burn the Kora [View All]

[Turborama]

US President Barack Obama says plans by a small church to burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of 9/11 are a "recruitment bonanza" for al-Qaeda.

Mr Obama's comments come as Pakistan called the plan "despicable" and said that if it went ahead, it could inflame Muslim sentiment across the world.

The plan has drawn widespread international condemnation.

The pastor behind the threat says the burning would be a way to stand up to terrorism.

Full article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11243711

Analysis

Jonathan Marcus
BBC Diplomatic Correspondent

This episode risks undoing all of the Obama administration's patient efforts to reach out to the Muslim world, and the irony is that Mr Obama has made his own distaste for the burning crystal clear. So too have representatives from all of America's major religious groups.

But the reality is that distaste for a proposed course of action is not necessarily sufficient to have it stopped. America's freedoms and the separation of church and state make it very difficult for the federal government to do much except to appeal to the Church's pastor to change his mind.

This episode also underlines the decentralised structure of this particular branch of US Christianity. Each church - however tiny - is largely independent. There is no central religious authority that can demand a particular course of action.

One possibility is that the local authority in Gainesville, Florida, may be able to halt the burning by finding some regulation that it infringes. It might be a peculiarly parochial answer to a problem that could send shockwaves around the world.