anti-americanism, getting past muslim hate
This article, written and published in July 2003, is perhaps one of the better ones I've come across. Why is it that world peace seems to hinge on peace in the area labeled "the Middle East" ??? - and Middle East peace seems to hinge so profoundly on peace between The Gaza Strip, West Bank territories, and that bloody (literally) little country Israel???
The Bush administration, and Powell spoke up TODAY - DO NOT EXILE ARAFAT - I still don't think the exile of Arafat to France, or some other shitty little country, will make any difference towards peace in Israel/Palestine - just don't see it.
Any thoughts about anything within this article is meaningful here - SO, bring on the opinions and
s - THIS ARTICLE IS NOT ON THE WEB.
Titled: Getting Past the Hate
How America should respond to an angry Muslim world
By Fouad Ajami:
the authors University bio:
http://www.sais-jhu.edu/faculty/profiles/ajami.html
"A historic transformation is unfolding before our eyes: There is a vast American imperial presence in the Muslim World. The invasion of Iraq was not the beginning, and it will not be the end. From military campaigns in Kuwait, Bosnia, and Kosovo to our war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, we have shown that our power underpins international order. This is America's burden."
"As a people, we are singularly uncomfortable with the idea of imperial power. You might say we are an empire in denial. But the shattering surprise of Sept 11, 2001, brought forth a new world. Our willingness to launch wars in Afghanistan and Iraq was born of the recognition that there are plotters against America who have to be struck down lest they bring greater terrors onto
our soil."
"We entered these wars with justifiable reluctance, not least because anti-Americanism is rampant in Arab and Islamic lands. But this hatred of America should be seen for what it is: a scapegoat for the ills of an Islamic world in the throes of a deep, historic crisis. The dream of modernity in the Arab heartland of Islam has been thwarted. The grace of life in cities that
once knew some civility has been overwhelmed by a great demographic explosion. With 41% of it's population under the age of 14, the Arab region has the highest birthrate on the planet. At the same time, it is in the grip of mass poverty: Consider that 22 Arab countries, taken together, have a smaller GNP than that of Spain alone."
"Even the oil lands, once the El Dorado of the region, have not been spared. Saudi Arabia and the smaller oil states of the Persian Gulf have run down their foreign currency reserves, while their populations have doubled over the last 2 decades."
"Awakened to it's own decline, the Islamic world searched desperately for someone to blame. The angry mobs and their manipulative rulers found the perfect target in a distant America and a nearby Israel."
"Hoping to soothe this "Arab street," in late 2001 Secretary of State Colin Powell pressed into diplomatic service an accomplished Madison Avenue executive, Charlotte Beers, as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Her charge: sell America's image to Arab and Muslim countries."
"But the campaign ended in futility. After 17 months on the job, Beers gave up her post. "Public Diplomacy" could not convince the young people of Ramallah and Cairo and Casablanca and Amman of America's goodness and innocence. The battle for hearts and minds in Arab lands and Islamic nations is no simple marketing affair."
"Nor is it best waged through active American diplomacy on behalf of the Palestinians. That's the conventional wisdom, and it is wrong. In the 1990's, President Clinton ceaselessly courted the Palestinian leader, Yassar Arafat, and journeyed to Gaza to give America's blessing to the cause of Palestinian self-determination. The men of Al Qaeda paid no heed. They had their own scores to settle with their own rulers and the United States. For radical Islamists, the plight of the Palestinians is one more excuse, but not one they need."
"When all is said and done, the best antidote to anti-Americanism will be an Arab world that accepts responsibility for its own fate. Still, we cannot simply wait for this time to come. We must try to help bring it about."
"There are 4 things that America needs to do. More than mere salesmanship, these strategies will tell the multitudes in the Islamic lands what America is about, and what its power aims to do.
"1. SUCCEED IN IRAQ - A representative government under our auspices will have to to be put in place, and this must be a showcase of both American benevolence and determination."
"The way out of Iraq's despotic past will not be easy. No simple one-man, one-vote system will get us there. That formula would result in the ascendancy of the Shi'ites, who make up 60 percent of the population, at the expense of Iraq's other communities, including Sunnis, Kurds, Chaldeans, Assyrians, and Turkmen."
"No compromise ought to be made with those who would want to impose on Iraq a Shi'ite clerical state in Iran's image. Those theocrats must be reined in, and America should not hesitate to do so. Fortunately, the majority of Iraq Shi'ites, as well as some sensible clerics and seminarians, appear to want no part of the clerical reign of "virtue and terror" that has wrecked Iran."
"There is no way to know how long it will take to rehabilitate Iraq. After World War II it took nearly a decade to demilitarize and democratize Japan. Its political culture had to be detoxified and it's educational system revamped. That kind of work will have to be done in Iraq."
"Meanwhile, Arabs and Muslims everywhere will be watching to see what the new American order will bring forth. Transform Iraq with a system based on the rule of law, and the reverberations of reform will be felt in nearby Iran and in distant Morocco and Algeria. Walk away from Iraq, and the message will be one of American abdication."
"2. END MILITARY PRESENCE IN SAUDI ARABIA - This was Pax Americana's principal base in the Arab world, dating back to the early 1930s. But the Saudi realm has changed. America's military presence now arouses hostility."
"Radical preachers have stepped forth to rail against the presence of "crusaders" on holy Islamic land. It was this xenophobia that gave the forces of Al Qaeda their frenzy and their passion."
"America --and Saudi rulers--will be better off if we work out of the smaller, more secular realms in the Persian Gulf: Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman. Qatar has been the trendsetter here. A kind of modernism--voting, women's rights--has come to this small principality. It is keen on having an American presence, and is unembarrassed about it. Realizing this, American military planners already have transferred the day-to-day responsibility for air missions in the region from the Prince Sultan Air Base, near the Saudi capital of Riyadh, to a backup headquarters in Qatar."
"But this partial withdrawal will not satisfy the anti-American zealots. Our entire military needs to leave Saudi Arabia, however tempting it may be to keep U.S equipment, aircraft and training crews there."
"This could be the beginning of a more normal role in the Persian Gulf. The Saudi realm, meanwhile, would be left to work out the terms of a new social contract between rulers and ruled, between religion and the requirements of a modern life."
"3. LOOSEN TIES TO EGYPT'S REGIME - If America is committed to modernism and democracy in the Arab world, it can no longer afford a tight relationship with an authoritarian regime that stays in power by playing up anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism."
"Mubarek's regime is the second largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid. America's treasures have kept the Egyptian Officers Corps pacified and acquiescent. It's a financial bargain with Egypt's military rulers that has rested on the hope that they would spare the world the furies of Islamism and religious radicalism."
"The bargain did not work. In no small part, the running war between the Islamists and the Eqyptian regime gave rise to the horrors of 9/11. More recently, Egypt's rulers watched with anxiety the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue. The fall of his regime, with it's syncophants and clan rule, is a crystal ball in which Egyptians can gaze at their own future."
"Back in the 1920s and 1930s, Egypt knew modernism, a multiparty political life, open debate, secular culture. This can come to pass again. But until it does, America should not be subsidizing the leadership of Egypt, which tolerates the anti-Americanism that infects the media and universities. In the battle for Egypt, Mubarek should not claim that he has the great liberal power at his side."
"4. PUSH FOR LEBANON'S INDEPENDENCE - Through it's military occupation of large parts of Lebanon, Syria has all but obliterated that nation's independence. It took stealth and brutality for the late Syrian dictator Hafez Al-Assad to make his regime the ultimate power in Lebanon's affairs. It needn't take armed conflict to release that grip."
"In 1990-91, Assad lent rhetorical support to the American-led war against his nemesis, Saddam Hussein. It was then, with America averting it's gaze, that the Syrians completed their conquest of Lebanon. Now circumstances have changed. Syria itself is in our cross hairs, and the country has a young, untried President (the dictator's son, Bashar Al-Assad). The time is ripe for us to lead an international effort to evict Syria from Lebanon."
"The stakes in Lebanon are of no small consequence. The country has deep traditions of pluralism and tolerance. In it's better days, Lebanon had been a base for American educational and religious missions."
"There is no easy return to some splendid age for Lebanon. But there is a vibrant civil society there, a people at one with the modern world and eager to be rid of the tyranny of a retrogressive Syrian regime."
"Syria, meanwhile, is a troubled society, with a despotic regime and a faltering economy. It has held on in Lebanon because it has not been costly to do so. A clear message could be sent to Syria's rulers: The price for their diplomatic and political rehabilitation is a prompt withdrawal across the international border with Lebanon."
"These are no sure remedies for the anti-Americanism so deeply rooted now in the Muslim lands. It is a hatred that feeds on itself, ascribing to America the most sordid of motives. But the hope must be entertained that substantial numbers of Arabs are keen to rehabilitate their own world. If so, then they may come to see the American intervention in their lives for what it is; a reluctant undertaking by a country whose imperial reach into Islamic lands was forced on it by terrors that blew its way on a clear September morning."
