In order to start a new beginning with the Islamic world, the American President Barak Obama delivered a historic speech at Cairo University on June 4, 2009. In this speech, Obama tried not only to reconcile with the Islamic world, but also to set out his new agenda as President of the United States. The purpose of this article is to investigate how Obama interacts with his audience through the system of Engagement as outlined in the Appraisal theory. Two research questions were raised in this study: 1) what options of monoglossic and heteroglossic functions did Obama use in his speech? 2) what does the use of certain options over others reveal about Obama's ideology? Findings indicate that most of Obama's propositions carry a monoglossic function, which, contrary to some previous linguistic studies discussing this speech, implies the same American ideology of ruling the world and working for America's interest.