March 19, 2003

A View from the Arab World

War, Terror and the Clarity of Trends

By Rami G. Khouri

Two points particularly stand out in the results of the survey of public opinion in five Arab countries in the past month that was designed and sponsored by Dr Shibley Telhami of the University of Maryland and conducted by the respected pollster Zogby International (the poll results can be seen at http://bsos.umd.edu/sadat/me_survey.htm). The first, according to the results from polling in Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Jordan, is that most respondents' negative views of the United States were based mainly on US policies, and not on American or Arab values. This is significant because it confirms — yet again, for those who need it — that anti-American sentiments in the Middle East are largely a reaction to American policies in this area that are seen to be anti-Arab, or biased towards Israel. Though most Arabs oppose or dislike America these days, the good news is that this tension can be relieved by a revision of US policies that would see Washington, for example, play a more evenhanded role in the Arab-Israeli conflict, promote democratic rather than authoritarian Arab governance, and rely less on unilateral militarism in dealing with problems in this area.

The second point that I found important, though worrying, was the very high expectation that an American-led war against Iraq would lead to more terrorism. More than three out of every four respondents in the countries polled held this view (they reached a high of 96 per cent in Saudi Arabia, and a low of 75 per cent in Egypt). The frightening aspect of this is what it reveals about the perception and sentiments of the average Arab man and woman, who now sees terror as a relatively normal part of the political landscape. This is visible in other troubling ways as well, especially the widespread lack of condemnation of terror by Arabs when it is used by Arabs against others. Lack of condemnation is not the same thing as active support or approval.

The fact is that most Arabs feel so abused and aggrieved by their political condition — at the hands of their own political regimes, Israel and the US — that they have now adapted to the terror around them as a routine policy response by some of the most disenchanted Arabs amongst them. Most Arabs clearly see terror as morally wrong, but now they seem also to see it as politically inevitable. This is largely a consequence of the continuing legacy of injustice and oppression that most Arabs would see as defining their modern lives. An American-led war will make this situation much worse.

The continuing collapse of trust and rational communication between the Arab world and the United States government has been severely accelerated by American policies since Sept. 11. Recent US policy has largely heightened Arab perceptions that the United States would use its might to serve its own interests and feelings, without adequately working within a global context that gave equal value to the legitimate concerns and rights of others. Bush and his advisers seem to have squandered a rare opportunity to use American resolve and power to lead a truly global war against terror that would be enthusiastically supported by the whole world. Instead, we witness the current spectacle of the United States almost single-handedly defying the entire world and pushing ahead with war against Iraq.

The latest Zogby-University of Maryland poll clarifies the precise cause and effect of such American policy decisions. The US has the power and the will to change any government in the world and attack and defeat any country, but such actions come at a cost. That cost has been clear in the Arab world for some years — strong anti-Americanism, including terror in recent years. In the past few months, we've seen most of the rest of the world express similar objections to the substance and style of American foreign policy. This will not deter Bush from his course of action, which he believes to be in the best interest of the American people, but the likelihood is that war in Iraq will come at a considerable political and material cost to the US, as this and other polls confirm with a clarity that is as thick as a prime rib Texas steak.