While much remains to be done, Obama has changed the reference points of US relations with the Islamic world, writes Moataz-Bellah Abdel-Fattah* To better understand the international scene following the 9/11 attacks, let's consider the options that were available to the main protagonists and see how they handled these options. On one side of the conflict, we see the radical Al-Qaeda organisation acting with cunning and turning its weakness into a powerful weapon. The militants of Al-Qaeda devised ways of planning and destruction that wrong-footed America, pushing it into a trap of confusion, if not delusion. Like ants that walk into the inner ear of an elephant and wreak havoc, Bin Laden and members of his outfit sent America hurtling onto a destructive path of ill-advised revenge that alienated its friends more than it damaged its enemies. You may recall that former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld estimated the cost of the war on Iraq at $50 billion. Now this figure is close to $1 trillion and is still rising. Bin Laden and his outfit wanted to drag the US army onto their home turf. And what better place than Afghanistan, a country that Al-Qaeda and its supporters know like the palms of their hands, and of which the Americans know precious little? Al-Qaeda's operatives gained valuable experience during the decade-long conflict with the Soviets back in the 1980s, and they were pleased to see the Americans falling into the same quagmire that brought down the once mighty USSR. On the other side of the conflict, we see the Bush administration with its neocon strategists reacting to an inhumane attack by inhumane actions of their own. The errors of judgement that the neocons made were staggering, especially when coming from a superpower with such a long record of managing international conflicts. For one thing, the US administration embraced a strategy that mirrored the exclusivist ideas of Bin Laden and his lieutenant El-Zawahri. The attitude of "those who are not with us are against us" made many people who were sympathetic with the Americans cringe at US actions. Potential allies turned into implicit enemies as the Bush administration stopped listening to advice. Instead of treating Al-Qaeda and its supporters as an extremist outfit that must be excised with surgical deft, the war against terror became indiscriminate in its scope and entire populations were made to suffer. In 2005, the Bush administration embraced an agenda of freedom, one that is based on the assumption that "terrors grow in the fertile soil of despotism". This agenda turned out to be self- defeating. Before long, those who predicted that the invasion of Iraq would send a wave of democratisation across the region were proven wrong. Were the Iranians, the Syrians, and like- minded people across the region supposed to wait for the US to remove Saddam and build a democracy in Iraq, then invade their countries? It wasn't hard for countries neighbouring Iraq to stir up trouble for the US occupation, nor was it hard to deny Iraq the stability and democracy the US had promised. The US administration confused myth with reality. Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan had the social and cultural background to develop in the way Germany and Japan did after World War II, as neocon theorists seemed to suggest. Iraq and Afghanistan were stable only to the extent their ruthless masters kept a tight grip on crude power. On the power of their leader depended the legitimacy of the regime, and on the latter depended the unity of the state. Without Saddam, there was no Baath Party, and without the Baath Party, the country disintegrated. A similar situation existed in Afghanistan, and things are not much different in countries that gained independence following World War II. The idea of creating stable, democratic, and pro-American regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan was unrealistic from the start. Once Obama came to power, the plan of Bin Laden and his friends began to falter. The new president didn't want to continue the self-destructive policies of his predecessor, at least not with the economy being so wobbly at home. The Obama administration made several moves to amend the erroneous course of its predecessor. In the first year of his term in office, Obama acknowledged the importance of the Arab-Israeli conflict, something which preceding presidents did only in the final year of their term in the White House, if ever. This was a good call, for the suffering of the Palestinians is one of the key reasons for anti-US sentiments in the Muslim world. Also, Obama's administration shifted attention from democratic transition to basic human rights, this being a more pragmatic and achievable objective. It is not because democracy is of no consequence, but Obama and his team are realistic enough to see that they have no other alternative but to work closely with stable, albeit undemocratic, regimes. In order to confront world terror and resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, one has to be pragmatic. The Iraq saga shows that stable countries, even if not exactly friendly to the US (eg, Syria), are less of a threat than friendly and unstable countries (eg, Afghanistan and Iraq). Stable countries are also more capable of making the concessions needed to settle regional grievances. Under Obama, the rhetoric changed. In his two famous speeches in Ankara and Cairo, and before that, Obama said that the US was not in war with Islam, but at war with a group of people who have abused Islam and terrorised the world in its name. This was more than a change in rhetoric. When Obama dropped any further reference to the "war on terror" he was making it clear that the war was no longer waged on Muslims, or Islamists, but on Al-Qaeda and its backers. Thus the US offered the Taliban a chance to negotiate and disarm, so that US troops may have the opportunity to focus its efforts on fighting Al-Qaeda. Although the Taliban rejected the US offer (Iran did the same later on), the US scored a diplomatic and propaganda victory. It made it clear that it wanted peace and that war was a last resort. This was the opposite of what the Bush administration had advocated. The Bush administration came across as interested solely in war, not in working things out. Through such policies, the Obama administration has been able to restore US-Islamic differences to the realm of politics. This is a crucial shift that boosted the position of moderates and could lead to progress on issues of great delicacy. The challenges are still considerable, however, and a lot of healing remains to be done, especially with regards to the Arab-Israeli conflict. * The writer is an expert on Middle Eastern politics and Islamic studies and a professor of political science at Central Michigan University.
