But even as Mr. Obama appealed for the people of the region to embrace self-determination as the route to peace and prosperity, he left open how far the United States could go in matching its enthusiasm with concrete steps to support a sustained transformation in a region long defined by repression, poverty and seething frustration.
If the model, as the president suggested, was the integration of eastern Europe into the West after the fall of Communism, the reality that he left unaddressed was that this is not 1989.
In global politics, as in life, timing is everything. The Middle Eastern and North African states now in various stages of upheaval have come to democracy in an era of painfully tight budgets in the United States and economic crisis in Europe.
What Egypt was offered in the president?s speech ? $1 billion in debt relief over several years and another $1 billion in loans to finance infrastructure improvements ? is hardly a Marshall Plan, as the Egyptians have made clear in private discussions with Washington.
And because there are no institutions in the Arab world akin to the European Union, the beacon that drove many of the former Soviet states to adopt the institutions of democratic capitalism, Mr. Obama and other Western leaders are racing to invent something.
?The reality is that there just isn?t much money around for this project,? one of Mr. Obama?s top officials acknowledged after his speech in the State Department ended.
The drive now is to persuade the Saudis and other oil rich states to underwrite the transitions in democracy. It is not an easy sell as the Saudis, among others, swallow their anger at Mr. Obama?s abandonment of old but reliable dictators, and as they desperately try to stop the democratic contagion from seeping across their borders.
That dilemma points up one of the many challenges that faced Mr. Obama as he tried to fashion an American doctrine for dealing with a period of upheaval that is still under way. Six months after a Tunisian street peddler named Mohamed Bouazizi immolated himself in protest, and set a region on fire, the president was understandably eager to fill the vacuum from forming in the region.
With the fate of Libya, Syria and Yemen still in play, his aides knew he had to align himself more forcefully with the voices for change, and to equate their revolution with America?s, 235 years ago.
He did, declaring: ?The United States of America was founded on the belief that people should govern themselves. Now, we cannot hesitate to stand squarely on the side of those who are reaching for their rights, knowing that their success will bring about a world that is more peaceful, more stable and more just.?
But the risk is that the region may perceive that Mr. Obama has more good intentions than cash to put into the enterprise. And in an area that has long been suspicious of American motives, Mr. Obama acknowledged that it will take more than hearty endorsements to carry the revolution to the next stage.