“I’m amazed ... I just can’t believe it! Because I know how good we are....!”
George W. Bush said it. It was his response when he saw “that in some Islamic countries there is a vitriolic hatred for America.”
It could have been said by any national leader, including an Islamic one, about his own nation. We all assume to some extent that we are right and they are wrong.
The real danger is that it tends to polarize opinion.
“You’re either with us or against us,” as Bush put it.
If only life really was as simple as deciding which way to turn at a T- junction.
When asked in September what action he had taken to convince the people of the Middle East and Saudi Arabia in particular that the “war on terrorism” was not in fact a “war on Islam,” he said: “I hope people really do not believe that.”
In other words, he had taken no action whatever. And many still feel that it is a war against Islam.
It is then only one short step from polarization to division, “Europe dividing off from the US, the Arab world versus the West, Muslim versus Christian,” as Tony Blair observed last November.
Odd, then, that he didn’t anticipate his current difficulties. He assumed that the cause was just, that he had domestic and international support, that weapons of mass destruction and Al-Qaeda could all somehow be linked to Saddam Hussein — the list goes on, each new error of judgment compounding the last. And now he is in a corner.
Support America if it decides to attack Iraq without UN backing and risk the consequences of political and public revolt at home? Or withdraw support for the US and risk the domestic and international fallout from that?
It’s a nice binary decision, a political T-junction with two dead ends. Or is there a third option?
The Foreign Policy Center in the UK recently published a report commissioned by the British Council. “The UK government should be more openly critical of the policies of Ariel Sharon,” it says. “It should not be afraid of ‘bloodying the American’s noses’ when discussing attitude to the peace process.”
The British Council’s Director, David Green, said a better understanding between Britain and the Muslim World at a time of international tension was vital.
Mark Leonard, the director of the Foreign Policy Center and one of the authors of the report, said: “It might seem an odd time to try engaging people in the Middle East as the troops are assembling and bombs preparing to fly. But this is precisely the time for suspicions and hatred between the West and Mideast to be tackled with far greater effort and resources than ever before.”
The statement was followed, I am sure, by the crash of a door closing on an empty stable, for the horse of reason and dialogue has bolted.
Assumptions and polarization of positions are the stuff of headlines. The road to political corners is paved with them, and thousands of civilians in Iraq will pay the price.
Arab News Features 5 March 2003