oneworldtalk

Waleed Aly
April 11, 2009

This week, the George Bush era seems remarkably distant. Barack Obama was in Turkey, where he chose to end his eight-day tour of Europe with a speech to the Turkish parliament. Not so long ago, opinion polls showed that only some 9 per cent of Turks had a favourable opinion of the United States.

Yet, as Obama stood there, advocating for Turkey's inclusion in the European Union and celebrating it as the site of connection between East and West, it was clear this was a different world. He praised Turkey's evolving political culture, rattling off a list of Turkey's recent reforms to increase political freedom. He quoted Turkish proverbs and acknowledged their wisdom. Everyday Turks are now feting the new American President as a hero. By any standard, that is remarkable.

It is also a matter of symbolic consequence. This was Obama's first presidential visit to a Muslim-majority country. Indeed it is only in that context that his speech in Ankara can be fully appreciated. This was not simple nation-to-nation diplomacy. It is clear Obama is attempting something more ambitious than that. He is fundamentally reshaping America's relations with the Muslim world - so damaged during the Bush years. His comments in Turkey were only the latest part of what we can now see is an emerging pattern.

It is a pattern that began when he addressed the Muslim world specifically in his inaugural address in January. It was the only part of the world, other than America, Obama chose to address by name. And in the space of a sentence, he managed to articulate the template that would define his diplomacy: "We seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect." It was a profoundly insightful way to begin.

Obama's understanding of the Muslim world's anti-Americanism was apparently sophisticated enough to see that it was not simply a function of clashing values or foreign policy. It was also an expression of something deeper; of something less tangible, less concrete. It was an expression of humiliation, of feeling disrespected. Comprehensive opinion polling in the Muslim world has told us this explicitly.

So, for example, it was not simply that the Muslim world detested the invasion of Iraq. It was that such policy proceeded with a kind of arrogance and unilateral contempt. To the extent the nations of the Muslim world factored into the Bush administration's thinking, it seemed to be either as an ally or an enemy in the war on terror, and nothing more. There were precious few mutual interests here, and even less mutual respect.

This is why Obama was so keen in Turkey to stress that "America's relationship with … the Muslim world, cannot, and will not, just be based upon opposition to terrorism". This is why Obama sent a video message to Iran last month for the Persian New Year, declaring his eagerness to see Iran "take its rightful place in the community of nations", and greeting his audience in Farsi.

It is why he noted again last week that "Iran is a great civilisation". It is also why Obama chose to give his first full-length television interview as president, not to CNN or the BBC, but to the Middle Eastern satellite network Al-Arabiya. The symbolic message in all the above is clear: the success of the Muslim world matters to him. He is careful, though, to recognise that each nation has its own rich traditions on which to draw for its progress, while acknowledging that America, too, has its shortcomings. It is a message calculated to return esteem to these populations and to win hearts.

This dramatic philosophical departure from Bush's approach will quickly be derided by those of that persuasion as weak-willed appeasement. But such criticisms naively miss the point. Obama is not seeking to appease implacable foes. Indeed he regularly challenges them to offer something beneficial to their people. That is the point: he is playing a kind of wedge politics. Obama's charm offensive in the Muslim world places his opponents on tricky ground because their brand of political populism relies on an aggressive, charmless America for its authenticity. Obama's diplomacy undermines that, returning the focus to their own actions.

The Iranian regime refused to air Obama's video message on state television, before trying to dismiss it as empty rhetoric. As Obama himself observed on Al-Arabiya, terrorist leaders such as al-Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawahiri began attacking him before he was even in office, trying to cast him as black America's sell-out; the "house slave" who is ultimately complicit with his master. There's more than a hint of desperation in these barbs.

Bush was a gift for such ideologues because he made America easy to demonise and played into the hands of America's militant foes by treating them as an essentially military problem. Obama, meanwhile, acts as though he is running against them in an election. What's more, Obama understands that in a very real sense, that is exactly the situation he faces. It's about marginalising the extreme and winning over the mainstream. It may have disappeared for a while, but statecraft is back.

President Obama should be lauded for the generally positive remarks he made during his current visit to Turkey.
Speaking before the Turkish Parliament on April 6, Obama declared that the United States “is not and will never be at war with Islam.”

Needless to say, this tone represents a laudable departure from the hateful anti-Islamic rhetoric that more or less characterized the general discourse of the Bush administration. Bush, undoubtedly one of the most ignorant Presidents in the US history, spoke of “Islamo-fascism” and claimed that Muslims “don’t like our freedoms.”

However, for Obama to leave a lasting impact on American-Muslim relations, he will have to make a real departure, not only from Bush’s poisoned rhetoric, but also from Bush’s odious policies.

Muslims and all people of goodwill around the world don’t expect Obama to transform himself into a paragon of virtue. The American political environment is simply too structurally morbid to allow the appearance, even evolution, of politics based on honesty and virtue.

Universal Need: Less Power Politics

Nonetheless, Obama must realize that America itself, and the world at large, are badly in need of more honesty and more justice and less, I would say much less, power politics.
This is because a world order based on military might, economic power, and realpolitik balances is doomed. Indeed, the present economic mega-crisis haunting the economies of the world is a clear and painful refutation of the present international political order.

In surah Ar-Rum (The Romans) 30:41, the Quran speaks of the appearance of corruption on earth as a result of the actions of men. ” Mischief has appeared on land and sea because of (the meed) that the hands of men have earned, that (Allah) may give them a taste of some of their deeds: in order that they may turn back (from Evil).”

Hence, it is necessary that the leaders of the world, especially those in whose hands lies power, adopt an entirely new approach to world politics since the current system has both outlived its usefulness and proven its destructiveness.

It is in this spirit that billions of people around the world are looking to Obama for a real change; a change that, as the second Muslim Caliph Abu Bakr said, would render the “weak” strong until his rights are properly restored and grievances are properly addressed; and render the “strong” weak until he is forced to give up that which is not his.

It is no secret that America is so much hated in this part of the world due to the policies of greed, rapacity, and oppression adopted for too long by successive American administrations.

This is why President Obama needs to do a lot of soul-searching in order to reach the right conclusion and act on it.

What Needs to Be Changed

Generally speaking, there are three main cardinal problems contributing to the bad chemistry between Arabs and Muslims on the one hand and the United States on the other that need to experience some change.
First, the enduring embrace by the United States of the manifestly criminal entity called Israel, a bellicose and brutal state that lives and thrives on murder, theft, and mendacity.

Thanks to unlimited and unrestricted American support for Israel, the evil state has arrogated our land, destroyed our homes, bulldozed our farms, and transformed our population centers into open-air detention camps.

And whenever we — the aggrieved Palestinians — seek redress at the United Nations’ Security Council, the US government routinely and ritualistically uses its veto power to perpetuate oppression, encourage Israel to keep up its criminal behaviors, and force us to do things that we shouldn’t be doing.

We don’t demand and we don’t expect the United States to completely reverse the course of its relationship with Israel. However, we do expect the Obama administration to tell Israel in no mistakable language that murdering and maiming thousands of innocent civilians with White Phosphorus, even under the false rubric of fighting “terror”, is wrong.

We do expect the American government to tell Israel that building Jewish-only colonies on occupied land is wrong.

And we do expect the American government to make sure that the awesome machines of death given to Israel by the United States are not used to murder civilians and destroy their homes.

And above all, we expect America, Israel’s guardian-ally, to tell Israel that the continued military occupation of another people is unacceptable and inconsistent with American ideals, if indeed this is the case.

For the Sake of True Peace

Unfortunately, the enduring American embrace of Israeli Nazism (the epithet is more than justified in light of recent Israeli actions in Gaza) has created a lasting impression among most Arabs and Muslims that the United States is as evil as Israel and that it is futile and pointless to appeal to the American sense of justice and fairness.
To be sure, there are a thousand examples of American duplicity, hypocrisy, dishonesty, and even schizophrenia pertaining to US policy in the Middle East. It is this highly ugly, immensely unjust, and brazenly immoral policy that eventually brought us to where we are now.

Hence, it is imperative, for the sake of true peace, that the United States espouse a new policy based on simple fairness and honesty toward the Palestinian cause, a policy free of the diabolic restrictions of AIPAC and other Jewish lobbies.

This is what Obama must do if Muslims are to give his proclamations in Ankara the benefit of the doubt.

Secondly, there is the enduring American embrace of Arab tyrannies, these hateful despotic regimes that torment and enslave their own masses in order to stay in power.

In fact, apart from the Israel factor, there is no greater cause for Arab-Muslim antipathy toward the United States than such support for tyrants.

By supporting these corrupt and bankrupt regimes and sustaining them in power, the United States is simply robbing Arab masses from Bahrain to Casablanca of their God-given right to liberty, the very paramount value that the ignoramus Bush claimed Muslims hate.

It is really sad and lamentable that while people around the world are allowed to freely elect their governments and leaders, hundreds of millions of Arabs are denied that right.

In light, Muslims appeal to Obama in the strongest terms to desist from backing and supporting these hateful regimes that constantly torment and humiliate their own people for the sake of remaining in power.

Yes, the United States is worried that true democracy in the Muslim world might bring to power a new breed of leaders that may not be sympathetic to US geopolitical interests. Well, this could be true in the short run, but in the long run any democratically-elected government would have to be pragmatic and take into consideration the cool calculations of governance.

In fact, I am completely sure that a strategic decision by the US to abandon these impotent and bankrupt regimes would be eventually reciprocated with lasting feelings of gratitude by hundreds of millions of Muslims and Arabs.

One Step in the Right Direction

Finally, the United States will have to terminate its anti-Islam policies and discriminatory behavior against Muslims both in the United States and abroad. The latest statements by President Obama are undoubtedly a step in the right direction.
We Muslims understand that countries must do what it takes to protect their legitimate security interests. However, it is amply clear that many of these measures are more vengeful than preventive and more vindictive than objective.

In fact, a smart, wise, objective, and successful anti-terrorism approach should endear itself to the masses, not alienate them.

Eventually, however, terrorism is a tactic not an ideology. And in order to vanquish the lesser terror committed by individuals or groups, the bigger terror committed by states must also be terminated.

Is the war on terror in Afghanistan illegal?

Sectarian: Groups such as the Sunni Sipah-e-Sahaba and the Shia Tehrik-e-Jafria, which are engaged in violence within Pakistan;

Anti-Indian: Terrorist groups that operate with the alleged support of the Pakistani military and the intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), and the Harakat ul-Mujahedeen (HuM). This Backgrounder profiles these organizations which have been active in Kashmir;

Afghan Taliban: The original Taliban movement and especially its Kandahari leadership centered around Mullah Mohammad Omar, believed to be now living in Quetta;

Al-Qaeda and its affiliates: The organization led by Osama bin Laden and other non-South Asian terrorists believed to be ensconced in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Rohan Gunaratna of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore says other foreign militant groups such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Islamic Jihad group, the Libyan Islamic Fighters Group and the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement are also located in FATA;

The Pakistani “Taliban”: Groups consisting of extremist outfits in the FATA, led by individuals such as Baitullah Mehsud, the chieftain of the Mehsud tribe in South Waziristan, Maulana Faqir Muhammad and Maulana Qazi Fazlullah of the Tehrik-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TSNM), and Mangal Bagh Afridi of the Lashkar-e-Islami in the Khyber Agency.

Terrorism will continue to be the pre-eminent national security threat to most countries in 2009. The terrorist threat will spread from conflict zones to neighbouring regions and countries. More threat groups will adopt Al Qaeda’s methodology of suicide and ideology of global jihad. Using vehicle- and human-borne suicide attackers, terrorist groups in Asia, Africa and the Middle East will mount spectacular attacks against high profile, symbolic and iconic targets in urban cities.

The phased withdrawal of United States-led coalition forces from Iraq will create greater instability in Iraq and beyond. The Iraqi forces will fail to contain the violence. Iran will expand its covert and overt influence in Iraq. The threat from Iraq will spread to the Levant, Europe and beyond. Unless the US is pragmatic in its withdrawal plans, Al Qaeda and its affiliates will use Iraq as a forward operational base to mount operations in the Middle East, North and Eastern Africa and the West.

Despite a dramatic increase in coalition forces in Afghanistan, the terrorist threat will persist in Afghanistan. The answer to stability in Afghanistan rests in clearing the terrorist enclave on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) remains the epicentre of global terrorism, where Al Qaeda-led and -driven multiple threat groups plan, prepare and execute attacks globally. Unless and until the international community recognizes and assists Islamabad to dismantle Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban infrastructure in tribal Pakistan, the threat to the world will continue.

The conflict zones in the Middle East (particularly the Levant), East/Horn of Africa and South Asia (Pakistan and Afghanistan) will witness the highest level of threat. Threat groups operating in conflict zones will conduct Al Qaeda-style long range terrorist operations in neighbouring regions and countries in the global south. The terrorist threat will be lowest in Northeast Asia (except Xinjiang) followed by Southeast Asia (except Indonesia).

The threat to North America, Europe and Australia will largely stem from politicized and radicalized segments of migrant and diaspora communities. However, by increasing their intelligence penetration of radicalized segments of the Muslim communities, the Western security agencies will manage the threat to their host countries.

More terrorist and extremist groups will emulate Al Qaeda’s appealing ideology and cost- effective methodology. While Al Qaeda’s favoured approach is to mount suicide attacks against high profile, symbolic and strategic targets to inflict mass fatalities and casualties, its ideology calls for attacks against both domestic governments and Western/Israeli targets. As the near simultaneous “no surrender” attacks in Mumbai demonstrated in November 2008, even groups that are not part of the Al Qaeda family, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, have adopted Al Qaeda-style attacks.

Likewise, a number of threat groups in the Palestinian territories will be inspired by the belief system and methodology of Al Qaeda. Although the bulk of the attacks will be mounted by Palestinian Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade, 2009 will witness both the emergence and strengthening of Al Qaeda-inspired groups in the Palestinian territories, especially after the recent Israeli raids on Gaza.

Afghanistan and Iraq will persist as the world’s defining conflict zones. Muslim suffering, agony and resentment in those zones will galvanize Muslims worldwide. Although only a tiny minority of the Muslims support terrorism, the majority of Muslims will be reluctant to support Western presence in Muslim lands, even if it was well-intentioned.

Increasingly the same tactics used in Afghanistan will be replicated in Pakistan and beyond. It is very likely that Pakistan will continue to suffer from attacks of the scale of the Islamabad Marriot bombing in September 2008. Unless the international community assists Pakistan, the instability in Pakistan will grow in 2009.

The greatest national security challenge for the world in 2009 is to counter political and religious extremism, the precursor of terrorism. Although the operational and intelligence capabilities have been adequately built in the Muslim world, the West now needs to build global capabilities to counter the extremist message. The most important ingredient necessary to win the fight is restoring Muslim goodwill and public support the West has lost. The US especially should remove Muslim mistrust and suspicion of America’s intentions to make the world a better place.

The terrorists won sufficient public sympathy and support to sustain a terrorist campaign largely due to misinformed and misguided Western actions, primarily the US invasion of Iraq. The US must convince the Muslim world that America under the Obama presidency will be significantly different. This will be a monumental challenge. In the face of sustained terrorist and extremist propaganda, neutralizing nearly a decade of cumulative resentment and anger in the Muslim and Islamic world will take time and resources.

Even if the new US Administration successfully engages the Muslim world, it will require an unprecedented international effort. Although all the major powers have suffered from terrorism, in the global fight, Russia, China and India will not be international players.

A priority of the international community should be to build the forces and the mechanisms to stabilize conflict zones that produce suffering, virulent ideologies, violence, displacement, refugees and terrorists. From resolving protracted disputes such as Palestine, Kashmir, Mindanao, and other conflict zones where Muslims are suffering, the West-led international community will have to play a sustained role to buy Muslim goodwill.

Instead of promoting democracy, investing in economic development will result in Muslims themselves wanting greater political participation and representation. For the West to play such a role, the US, Europe and Australia will need to invest in initiatives and partnerships to prevent the political and economic marginalization of Muslims both at home and abroad.