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From Jan 26:

In his first formal interview since taking office, the president spoke with the Dubai-based station Al Arabiya on topics pertinent to the Arab and Muslim worlds. Much of the interview was spent defining the new approach that the United States would implement in that region: respectfulness over divisiveness, listening over dictating, engagement over militarism. But the president drew the line when it came to terrorist organizations.
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“I think that you're making a very important point. And that is that the language we use matters,” he said, according to a transcript provided by the White House. “We cannot paint with a broad brush a faith as a consequence of the violence that is done in that faith's name. I cannot respect terrorist organizations that would kill innocent civilians and we will hunt them down. But to the broader Muslim world what we are going to be offering is a hand of friendship.”
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“I have Muslim members of my family,” said the president. “I have lived in Muslim countries.

Later on, Obama pledged to engage Iran as one of several means of preventing that country from developing a nuclear weapon. He promised to follow through on his campaign commitment “to address the Muslim world from a Muslim capital,” and said that George Mitchell, his recently appointed Middle East envoy, was going to the region to “listen” because “all too often the United States starts by dictating.”
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The interview was the first one Obama has granted since being elected President. And while Bush and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice both have appeared on the network (which is Saudi financed), the president's media team seemed to be driving home a message in their choice of venue. The interview itself is as much a signal to the Muslim world as the words he said.

This all seems to have even more meaning four months later...