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Own people. alisyn: back at home, more on this, the president is expected to defend the syrian sanctions in his first major address on the up risingings throughout the middle east and in less than two hours, president obama will speak of the historic shift in the region and new economic aid to nations that support democracy, wendal goaler is live at the -- wendell goler is live at the white house, so what do we know about the aid. >> reporter: it is worth several billion dollars to tunisia and egypt, and some is releasing debt and, all to stimulate job growth in countries where the youth unemp...

>> reporter: they certainly aren't giving thanks to the western world or to president obama for having liberated the middle east. in fact, people here think of the united states mostly having backed president obama mubarak for three decades. yes, in the end president obama was supportive of the revolutionari revolutionaries, but that doesn't, race three decades of support for the dictators in this regime. >> richard, since you were last there, the changes that have evolved in egypt politically, what is happening in terms of the political process, the move toward democracy, the rise toward, you...

>> reporter: i wanted to respond to something michael said. i had a similar question to folks behind the scenes at the white house. and they said, look, one thing that some people wanted to say this speech is cairo-two that president obama came addressed in 2009 that took place in cairo, a very different cairo at that time. this speech is being directed at an american audience, too. and every -- you know, all of the policy decisions being made here is through the prism of america's interests, is one thing i was told. you know, first and foremost, one of the questions i had asked is the goal to...

Jon: when you look at what is happening in the middle east right now with turkey trending toward iran and syria, with hezbollah doing so well, with the lebanese government turning toward a hamas -- you know that kind of a government, it seems like the administration needs to come up with a plan and put it in place pretty effectively. >> that's right. the administration is lost. they don't have an anti-islamist policy. they believe that if you welcome islamist, ie the people who want to destroy democracy, if you welcome them into your democracy you contain them. it's been disproved in iraq and ...