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	The west’s role in Islams’s war of ideas by David Gardner The Financial Times   Published: July 9 2005   The cataclysmic attacks on New York and Washington on September 11 2001 created a small but influential industry, arguing through and on behalf of the Bush administration that the Islamist perpetrators of that atrocity “hate us for our freedoms”. That they loathe us for our values, for what we are and think rather than anything we do.   If only that were true. What we face, instead, is a war of ideas within the Muslim and Arab world. In that light, this is a delusionary proposition, which conveniently absolves us from having to re-examine critically our policies towards this world.   Although we do not know for sure who carried out Thursday’s vicious attacks on London, it was very likely part of the loose and protean franchise of fanatics inspired by 9/11 and its architects, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. But we cannot wait for the precise answer. We need now to engage fiercely with the substance of the problems that are proliferating jihadi terrorism. We need to find ways of isolating this minority before they make any further inroads into the Muslim mainstream.   The most important thing to recognise is how the great democratic wave that freed east and central Europe, Latin America and swaths of sub-Saharan Africa over the past two decades ran into the sands of the Middle East, leaving the Arabs marooned in tyranny. That was in no small part because the US and its main allies shored up local despots in the interests of stability and cheap oil.   These tyrants laid waste to the entire spectrum of political expression in their countries, leaving their adversaries no alternative but to fall back on the mosque. That, in turn, suited their purposes, enabling them to blackmail their western patrons: back us, or deal with the mullahs. There is probably no greater single source of rage in the Arab world than this collusion in tyranny and repression – not even the Israel-Palestine conflict, which, furthermore, is manipulated by Arab rulers as an alibi for maintaining their national security states on a spurious war footing.   The overwhelming majority of Muslims do not hate us for our freedoms. They do, however, despise these policies and some of the more frustrated among them are thereby prey to the siren songs of the jihadis.   Validation of this analysis came last September from the Defense Science Board (DSB), a federal advisory committee to the US defence secretary. The polls the DSB looked at are chilling. People in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, for example, Washington’s main Arab allies, gave a 98 and 94 per cent “unfavourable” rating to the US and its policies. But at the same time, the DSB study found that majorities or pluralities in the Arab countries do support values such as freedom and democracy, embrace western science and education, and like US products and movies. “In other words, they do not hate us for our values, but because of our policies,” the DSB says, before demonstrating how hatred of the policies has begun to tarnish the appeal of the values.   Compounding this disenchantment, a great many Arabs are sceptical about American intentions. For the most part, Arabs plausibly believe it was Osama bin Laden who smashed the status quo, not George W. Bush. Why? Because the 9/11 attacks made it impossible for the west and its Arab despot clients to continue to ignore a political set-up that incubated blind rage against them. The subsequent decision to invade Iraq further undermined the status quo, but in ways it is not obvious the Bush administration had thought through.   This January’s elections in Iraq saw a remarkable display of heroism by its people that struck a deep chord in Arab countries. Yet however much the triumphalists in Washington claim this as vindication for their bungled strategy, these elections took place at the insistence of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who vetoed three schemes by the US-led occupation authorities to shelve or dilute them. By that time, moreover, Iraq had started on the road to a sectarian war that may end by sucking in its neighbours: with Shia Iran on one side and Sunni rulers terrified by the empowerment of Iraq’s Shia majority on the other.   The policies of the US and its allies often seem contradictory, at a time when great clarity is needed. Mr Bush rightly attacked the “cultural condescension” that suggests Arabs and Muslims are unsuited to democracy nearly two years ago in a speech to the National Endowment for Democracy. More recently, and in Cairo, Condoleezza Rice, his secretary of state, announced that after 60 years of backing stability at the expense of democracy and getting neither, the US has learnt its lesson. But has it?   The answer is vital, because the jihadis need the story of the last 60 years to continue. They need the US to keep shoring up tyranny and defending the status quo. Of course, democracy alone will not resolve the problems of the Middle East. It will, moreover, often be antithetical to short-term stability, since it is Islamist movements that are emerging as the region’s centre of political gravity. But if the west continues to collude with local despots in denying their peoples freedom, we will lose that war of ideas. The jihadis will enter the Muslim mainstream, and continue their tactics of immolation. The shared values of Islam and the west will wither.
	It Just Gets Worse by Bob Herbert, Zbigniew Brzezinski Financial Times / New York Times   July 2005   It Just Gets Worse, by Bob Herbert. (New York Times)   Back in March 2004 President Bush had a great time displaying what he felt was a hilarious set of photos showing him searching the Oval Office for the weapons of mass destruction that hadn"t been found in Iraq. It was a spoof he performed at the annual dinner of the Radio and Television Correspondents Association.   The photos showed the president peering behind curtains and looking under furniture for the missing weapons. Mr. Bush offered mock captions for the photos, saying, "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere" and "Nope, no weapons over there ... maybe under here?"   If there"s something funny about Mr. Bush"s misbegotten war, I"ve yet to see it. The president deliberately led Americans traumatized by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, into the false belief that there was a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and that a pre-emptive invasion would make the United States less vulnerable to terrorism.   Close to 600 Americans had already died in Iraq when Mr. Bush was cracking up the audience with his tasteless photos at the glittering Washington gathering. The toll of Americans has now passed 1,750. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died. Scores of thousands of men, women and children have been horribly wounded. And there is no end in sight.   Last week"s terror bombings in London should be seen as a reminder not just that Mr. Bush"s war was a hideous diversion of focus and resources from the essential battle against terror, but that it has actually increased the danger of terrorist attacks against the U.S. and its allies.   The C.I.A. warned the administration in a classified report in May that Iraq - since the American invasion in 2003 - had become a training ground in which novice terrorists were schooled in assassinations, kidnappings, car bombings and other terror techniques. The report said Iraq could prove to be more effective than Afghanistan in the early days of Al Qaeda as a place to train terrorists who could then disperse to other parts of the world, including the United States.   Larry Johnson, a former C.I.A. analyst who served as deputy director of the State Department"s counterterrorism office, said on National Public Radio last week: "You now in Iraq have a recruiting ground in which jihadists, people who previously were not willing to go out and embrace the vision of bin Laden and Al Qaeda, are now aligning themselves with elements that have declared allegiance to him. And in the course of that, they"re learning how to build bombs. They"re learning how to conduct military operations."   Has the president given any thought to leveling with the American people about how bad the situation has become? And is he even considering what for him would be the radical notion of soliciting the counsel of wise men and women who might give him a different perspective on war and terror than the Kool-Aid-drinking true believers who have brought us to this dreadful state of affairs? The true believers continue to argue that the proper strategy is to stay the current catastrophic course.   Americans are paying a fearful price for Mr. Bush"s adventure in Iraq. In addition to the toll of dead and wounded, the war is costing about $5 billion a month. It has drained resources from critical needs here at home, including important antiterror initiatives that would improve the security of ports, transit systems and chemical plants.   The war has diminished the stature and weakened the credibility of the United Sates around the world. And it has delivered a body blow to the readiness of America"s armed forces. Much of the military is now overdeployed, undertrained and overworked. Many of the troops are serving multiple tours in Iraq. No wonder potential recruits are staying away in droves.   Whatever one"s views on the war, thoughtful Americans need to consider the damage it is doing to the United States, and the bitter anger that it has provoked among Muslims around the world. That anger is spreading like an unchecked fire in an incredibly vast field.   The immediate challenge to President Bush is to dispense with the destructive fantasies of the true believers in his administration and to begin to see America"s current predicament clearly. New voices with new approaches and new ideas need to be heard. The hole we"re in is deep enough. We need to stop digging.   Juy 2005 (Zbigniew Brzezinski)   Like a novelist who wishes to inject verisimilitude into his fiction, George W. Bush, US president, began his speech on Iraq with a reference to a historical fact all too tragically well known to his audience. The evocation of the monstrous crime of September 11 2001 served as his introduction to the spin that followed: that Iraq was complicit in 9/11 and thus, in effect, attacked the US; that the US had no choice but to defend itself against Iraq"s aggression; and, finally, that if America does not fight terrorists in Iraq, they will swarm across the ocean to attack America.   Since fiction is not ruled by the same standards as history, Mr Bush was under no obligation to refer to his own earlier certitude about Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” (or, rather, to their embarrassing absence), or to the inept sequel of the initially successful US military campaign; or to the fact that the occupation of Iraq is turning it into a huge recruitment centre for terrorists. Similarly, there was no need to deal with the perplexing fact that the Iraqi insurgency does not appear to be in “its last throes”, or with the complex choices that the US now confronts.   But a more disturbing aspect of the speech was the absence of any serious discussion of the wider regional security problems and their relationship to the Iraqi conundrum. That connection poses the danger that America risks becoming irrelevant to the Middle East – largely through Mr Bush"s own doing. Much depends on how long the US pursues unrealistic goals in Iraq. And on whether the US becomes seriously engaged in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, on how the US relationship with Iran is managed and on how the advocacy of democracy in the Middle East is pursued.   The reality in Iraq is that 135,000 American soldiers cannot create a stable “democracy” in a society rent by intensifying ethnic and religious conflicts. US military commanders, contradicting Mr Bush, have publicly stated that the insurgency is not weakening. It is useful to recall in this regard Henry Kissinger"s wise observation (made in regard to the war in Vietnam but pertinent here) that guerrillas are winning if they are not losing. The longer US troops are involved in Iraq, the more victory will remain “on the horizon” – that is, a goal that recedes as one moves towards it.   Only the Iraqis can establish a modicum of stability in Iraq, and that can be achieved only by Shia-Kurdish co-operation. These two communities have the power to entice or to crush the less numerous Sunnis. Hence the immediate goal of US policy should be to develop a dialogue with self-sufficient Shia and Kurdish leaders about the circumstances in which they could issue a public demand for American disengagement.   All this would be far less risky if accompanied by serious progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. That progress has to go beyond the Gaza disengagement or a renewal of reciprocal violence is to be expected. Progress requires US involvement and a willingness to press both parties with real resolve and towards clear goals. Equivocation, partiality toward one side and the temptation to evade this issue are prescriptions for continued conflict.   Similarly, US withdrawal from Iraq could be made more difficult and costly by any escalation in US-Iranian hostility. Iran has not taken full advantage of the opportunities for mischief but the temptation to do so would increase if American policy towards it again conflated the issue of nuclear power with the pursuit of “regime change”. There is little indication that the White House is sensitive to this reality.   Democracy in the Middle East is a worthy goal but one that the people of the region can pursue only on their own terms. Public hectoring by US officials is likely to promote the emergence of radical populist regimes motivated by strong anti-American (and anti-Israeli) passions.   The fictionalised account of America’s war against terror in Iraq failed to take into account the reality that the conflict there mobilises hostility towards the US, that the persistence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict stimulates regional anger against America, that continued US threats of “regime change” in Iran harden Iranian enmity towards the country and that heavy handed advocacy of democracy poses the risk of legitimising populist hostility toward it. In explaining the causes of imperial failure, Arnold Toynbee ultimately ascribed it to “suicidal statecraft”. Of course, he was dealing with history and not fiction.
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