Monitoring Policy Making at the United Nations |
| ||||||||||||
- Empire? - Global Policy Forum Western Policies Feeding Arab Resentment
Strategic Forecasting
June 20, 2002
The end of a two-day meeting of the Arab League June 20 in Cairo saw Arab information ministers launching a $22.5 million media campaign against Israel's "racist" policy toward the Palestinians. On the same day, Iranian state radio reported that Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi has warned EU officials of rising "Islamophobia" and blamed this on "discriminatory" Western policies against Muslims.
This backlash stems from recent European plans to scrutinize entry visas for certain countries, including many Middle Eastern states, and from U.S. plans to introduce a new security system to photograph and fingerprint foreign visitors, which many Muslims view as directed predominantly against Arab men. These steps -- following U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan, Washington's bellicose rhetoric toward Iraq and its perceived unwavering support of Israel's policies regarding the Palestinians -- are exacerbating a pervasive suspicion in the Middle East of the West's policies.
As the United States and its allies continue to hunt down and capture al Qaeda operatives and begin enhancing their border security, a certain amount of blowback is expected and acceptable. However, in this case the repercussions of such actions could translate into strategic gains for al Qaeda.
As an organization with limited resources, al Qaeda does not delude itself into believing it alone can defeat the United States in a war, but rather sees itself as a vanguard responsible for leading a grassroots campaign to unify the Muslim world into a pan-Islamic empire and drive corrupt Western influences out of the holy land.
Al Qaeda's Sept. 11 attack on the United States was intended to provoke an aggressive response by Washington, which hopefully would include a military campaign in the Muslim world and ideally spark a surge in anti-Western sentiment that could be rallied into a larger, more destructive force.
To date, at least this part of al Qaeda's strategy has been effective. As the United States and its allies take more security precautions and carry out anti-terrorism operations, they risk marginalizing people who were previously ambivalent toward the West until they found themselves directly on the receiving end of its policies.
Despite the problems they are causing, Washington won't very well stop measures to protect the country's security just for the sake of good publicity in the Middle East. But it can alleviate the growing anger in the Muslim world by stepping up its own "hearts and minds campaign," which so far has been little used and ineffective in improving the image of the United States in the Islamic world.
More Information on Empire
FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C ß 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
