United states - minus United
States By Ehsan Ahrari
For a while after the US invasion of Iraq,
it appeared that the idea of "the West" and
"Western unity" had become history. But now that
idea seems to be reviving precipitously.
It is interesting that the ostensible
departure of that idea looked real when a Muslim
country was invaded in 2003. Now Western unity is
seemingly resurgent in the aftermath of the
defiance by another Muslim country (Iran) of the
United States (or is the West?) and at a time when
Muslims are showing their outrage related to the
caricature of the Prophet of Islam. In both
instances, Islam has played a perceptible role.
Are we about to
see
the emergence of a great divide, a major schism,
between the world of Islam and the West? If so,
how permanent is this divide likely to be?
If the history of the Cold War teaches us
anything, it is that a conflict of a major
proportion and of an enduring nature is a
precondition for nation-states to determine on
which side of that conflict they want to be. They
study the conflict over a period of time,
determine how that conflict affects their vital
interests, and then evolve their related position.
That was what happened between 1945 and 1991.
Whether the community of nations now will follow a
similar pattern is not quite clear yet.
Islam has already emerged as a major issue
that has captured the world's attention,
especially for the past five years. As the lone
superpower, and as a nation that was targeted by
global terrorists on September 11, 2001, the
United States got on the offensive against a
fanatical government in Afghanistan soon
thereafter. Since all the hijackers on September
11 were Muslims, there were a number of legal
measures taken inside the US that were perceived
in Muslim countries as anti-Islamic in nature.
However, the US government, more than any other
government in the world, went out of its way to
insist that the focus of its outrage was not
Islam, but those elements that are determined to
perpetrate global chaos and mayhem in the name of
that great religion.
Then came the US
invasion of Iraq. It is the manner in which the
decision was made to invade that country - and the
fact that no weapons of mass destruction were
found - that intensified Muslim anger. Clearly
there was also ample resentment related to what
Muslims perceived as "unjust" concomitant public
discussions in the United States linking Islam
with global terrorism. Then came disclosures of
brutal treatment of Iraqi prisoners in the Abu
Ghraib prison and that of the "detainees" in the
Guantanamo prison. Even though the Bush
administration claimed that reports of brutality
related to those dungeons were exaggerated, the
allegations themselves were seen in Muslim
countries simply as more "evidence" of America's
ongoing "war" against Islam.
Viewing the
conflict from the US side, there is no reason to
dismiss the Bush administration's position that it
has no fight against Islam. The September 11
attacks legitimately frightened the US leadership,
even though its machismo prevented it from saying
so. The United States had to react. How much of
that reaction was legitimate and at what point one
could say the US went over the top was largely a
matter of debate. No one can rightly claim to be
objective about the issue. If you were a Muslim,
you would feel that your religion was
unjustifiably targeted, or the US went too far in
Afghanistan and Iraq. However, if you are not,
there was no such thing as overreaction. After
all, the United States was attacked first - it
could not have sat back and waited for another
attack. By the same token, it could not have taken
limited actions against those who deemed killing
Americans as some sort of "religious obligation".
Europe was not a part of that fight until
al-Qaeda targeted Spain in March 2004, as a
tactical maneuver to force it to pull its forces
out of Iraq. The fact that the Spanish government
withdrew its troops soon thereafter did not
persuade that organization not try to push all of
Europe toward appeasement. In fact, until the
terrorist attacks in Spain, the European
perspective was that al-Qaeda's major fight was
with the US, and Europe would, somehow, be spared.
As Europe remained schizophrenic about its
own position and ambivalent about its role in
George W Bush's "global war on terrorism", some of
its members showed solidarity by committing troops
in Iraq. Only France and Germany remained as major
critics and consistent opponents of that "war of
choice".
The London bombings of July 7,
2005, marked a point when Europe could no longer
remain ambivalent about its role in the "war
against terrorism". When the video of one of the
terrorists in those bombings was released showing
him declaring war against European countries, the
die was cast. Europe could no longer remain on the
sidelines. But Europe's participation in this war
became idiosyncratic of its perception of Islam, a
perception that has deep historical roots.
Regarding the "global war on terrorism",
there is a major difference between the United
States and Europe. Americans do not have long
memories of interacting with Islam or colonizing
Muslim countries. Besides, in the United States,
"political correctness" is more than a
bumper-sticker statement. Intuitively speaking, a
large number of people are genuine practitioners
of not offending anyone's faith in the name of
freedom of expression. Thus a majority of
Americans are at least intellectually capable of
making the distinction between the perverse
terrorist logic of relating their action to Islam
and the religion of Islam itself.
In
contrast, Europe - where anti-Islamic feelings
related to the Ottoman conquests between the 12th
and 16th centuries never really vanished - has
shown little evidence of really comprehending that
distinction. Besides, Europe was a region that
produced the most nefarious evidence of
anti-Semitism in the form of creating the
Holocaust. Europe is also a region - if one
includes Russia as an extension of it - that has
the legacy of creating gulags, another depressing
legacy of human suffering. In other words, Europe
has historically demonstrated that, given a
chance, it is capable of manifesting worse
examples of hatred. Europe is also busy constantly
raising the bar regarding the entry of Turkey in
the European Union, largely because it is a Muslim
country. That type of legacy is substantially
absent from US history.
In this context,
it seems that Europe is only beginning to show
that it is capable of demonstrating anti-Islamic
tendencies in the name of freedom of expression
(eg, the cartoon episodes of the Nordic
countries). The London Guardian reported on
February 6 that the same Danish paper that
published the caricatures of the Prophet of Islam
- claiming to exercise freedom of expression -
refused to publish (and rightly so) similar
cartoons of Jesus three years ago for fear of
offending Christians. If it decided to be
circumspect then by not publishing those cartoons,
why did it apply a different rule in the case of
offending Muslims? At the same time, some European
countries can stifle freedom of choice by
conveniently passing laws against hijab,
Islam's female dress code (eg, France for now, but
there are reports that European countries are also
considering the passage of similar laws), when it
suits their purpose.
Iran's nuclear
aspirations have to be viewed in the same context
and from the European perspective: an Islamist
government creating a fiction of not developing
nuclear weapons while, in reality, that is where
it is heading if it is allowed to continue its
uranium-enrichment programs. The involvement of
the EU-3 countries (the United Kingdom, France and
Germany) has made that conflict very central to
the EU's future role in resolving global issues.
At least that is a general perception in a number
of the European capitals. In this instance, Islam
is also a player, at least in the minds of the
Europeans.
So it seems that a great divide
is emerging between "the West" and the East. The
West seems to be uniting on issues related to
Islam. It is too early to surmise how long this
divide is likely to last. It might not last long
at all. One thing appears certain, however. As the
lone superpower - since it is determined to ensure
the longevity of the present unipolar order - the
United States is likely to work hard to close this
divide. In the case of Iran, it has wisely let the
EU-3 countries play a visible role in negotiating
with Iran, thereby allowing diplomacy to proceed.
At the same time, it has wisely decided to create
a physical distance from Europe in the
caricature-related controversy. It declared them
as "offensive", but also has also supported the
related exercise of freedom of expression.
The Europeans might not know this, but the
United States would not want the "return" of the
"West" that would sow seeds of intense resentment
and hatred toward that very idea in the world of
Islam. The US has most to lose, not the Europeans.
Ehsan Ahrari is a CEO of
Strategic Paradigms, an Alexandria, Virginia-based
defense consultancy. He can be reached at
eahrari@cox.net or
stratparadigms@yahoo.com. His columns appear
regularly in Asia Times Online. His website:
www.ehsanahrari.com.
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