Letting go of America's Arab Letting go of America's Arab "friends"
On the whole, I have no patience for those who would blame the West, and US foreign policy in particular, for its own travails. But there is one respect in which I think the West does have some responsibility: not so much for fueling the Afghan civil war, but for its support of the illegitimate regimes that have produced most of the terrorists identified in the twin towers attack. Remember how Bush promised to treat countries that harbor terrorists as if they were themselves responsible? Well, forget about harboring, what about countries that actually *produce* terrorists? The majority of the attackers on September 11th were Saudi; and Al-Jihad al-Islami, the Egyptian fundamentalist group, is thought to have merged with Osama Bin Laden. And, guess what, Saudi Arabia and Egypt and Uzbekistan - two producers of Islamic radicals - are key US allies in the region. A western visitor encounters much more hostility in these countries than in supposed rogue states such as Syria, Libya or Iran. [I'm thinking of visiting the region, and have been doing some research.]
Now, one explanation is that regimes like Syria's have been brutal in their suppression of dissent, including Islamic fundamentalism. But I have another thought: Islamic fundamentalist revival is like a fever, which may need to take its course. In Iran, for instance, Islamic fundamentalism has clearly peaked; now, two decades after Khomeini returned to Iran, the young find all the anti-American rhetoric of their elders rather tiring. By containing Islamic passions, as the US-backed Saudi regime has done, they only become more intense. One relevant lesson in the law of unintended consequences: US intervention in Vietnam, which delayed the victory of Ho Chi Min, but also held back Vietnam's inevitable entry into the global capitalist system. Maybe the West needs to stop propping up Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and let go of the Arab world, in order to win. Let Arab countries choose their own destiny, and hope that, in a generation or two, the children of the fundamentalists get bored with their parents' rants against America. The Spectator: Ground Zero and the Saudi connection CNS - Al-Jihad al-Islami Profile Inside Al-Qaeda - Jane's International Security News Ayman Al-Zawahiri: attention turns to the other prime suspect - Jane's International Security News Washington Post on the Egyptian connection MEMRI summary of the Egyptian press Tariq Ali: The real Muslim extremists#
