The Clipboard: Taking Arabs Seriously

From an article¹:

Certainly, no amount of dialogue will change Arab opinions about the United States and its intentions absent tangible changes in policy. But just as certainly, changes in policy cannot and will not speak for themselves. Pressing the Israeli government to dismantle settlements, allowing genuinely representative Iraqi elections, easing the visa process for Arabs to visit the United States -- all of these could help repair the damage incurred over the last couple of years, but only if they are explained through open debate in credible and independent Arab media.

A dialogue with Arabs offers no magic bullets. It requires patience and self-restraint, a sustained commitment to efforts that might not deliver immediate gratification. The Bush administration has to set aside its distaste for diplomacy, its penchant for threats and coercion and its tendency to divide the world into simplistic categories of good and evil. But given the changes that have taken place in the Arab world in recent years, such a dialogue might well be the best, and perhaps the only, way to make progress in achieving the lofty goals that President Bush has laid out for the Middle East. (link)

An excellent article. Unfortunately patience, self-restraint, and sustained commitment do not seem to be major characteristics of the Bush Administration while distate for diplomacy, penchant for threats and coercion, and tendenc to divide the world into simplistic categories are.

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Complete text of the article, Taking Arabs Seriously, by Marc Lynch

The hawks in the Bush administration think the key to understanding the Middle East is Osama bin Laden's observation that people flock to the "strong horse." They believe U.S. problems in the region stem in part from "weak" responses offered by previous administrations to terrorist attacks in the 1980s and 1990s, and they came into office determined to reestablish respect for U.S. power abroad. After nearly two years of aggressive military actions, however, the United States' regional standing has never been lower. As the recent Pew Global Attitudes survey put it, "the bottom has fallen out of Arab and Muslim support for the United States."

Because of the speed with which intense anti-Americanism has emerged across all social groups in the region -- including educated, Westernized Arab liberals -- the problem cannot be attributed to enduring cultural differences, nor to long-standing U.S. policies such as support for Israel or local authoritarian leaders. Arabs themselves clearly and nearly unanimously blame specific Bush administration moves, such as the invasion of Iraq and what they see as a desultory and one-sided approach to Israeli-Palestinian relations. But perhaps even more important than the substance of the administration's policies is the crude, tone-deaf style in which those policies have been pursued. The first step toward improving the United States' image, therefore, must be figuring out how to address Arabs and Muslims effectively.

Bush?s team assumes that Arabs respect power and scorn attempts at reason as signs of weakness -- and so the way to impress them is to cow them into submission. Another assumption is that Arab public opinion does not really matter, because authoritarian states can either control or ignore any discontent. Still another is that anger at the United States can and should be disregarded because it is intrinsic to Islamic or Arab culture, represents the envy of the successful by the weak and failed, or is simply cooked up by unpopular leaders to deflect attention from their own shortcomings. And a final, increasingly common notion is that anti-Americanism results from a simple misunderstanding of U.S. policy.

Right Goal, Wrong Approach

Together, these concepts have produced an approach that combines vigorous military interventions with a dismissal of local opposition to them, offset by occasional patronizing attempts to "get the American message out" (through well-intentioned but ineffective initiatives involving public diplomacy, advertising, and the promotion of radio stations featuring popular music). Not surprisingly, the result has been to alienate the very people whose support the United States needs in order to succeed.

America needs to approach regional public diplomacy in a fundamentally new way, opening a direct dialogue with the Arab and Islamic world through its already existing and increasingly influential transnational media. Such a dialogue could go a long way toward easing deep-seated anger over perceived American arrogance and hypocrisy and could address the corrosive skepticism about Washington's intentions, which colors attitudes toward virtually everything the United States does. It might also help nurture the very kinds of Arab liberalization that the Bush administration claims to seek.

An effective approach to Arab public opinion today should focus less on the street and the palaces than on the participants in and audiences of new public forums -- like the transnational media which foster vibrant and open political debate. The Bush administration seemed to recognize this necessity after September 11, 2001, sending numerous representatives on al Jazeera programs, but early enthusiasm gave way to frustration and fury over the network's sympathetic coverage of al Qaeda and hostile coverage of American policies toward Afghanistan and Iraq. The administration's pressure on al Jazeera to censor tapes of bin Laden made a mockery of its free-speech rhetoric in Arab eyes, and Arab journalists were disinclined to take advice on objectivity from the United States, where broadcasters wear American flags on their lapels.

Words And Deeds

Frequent and appropriately frank appearances in the new Arab media by American representatives could have a salutary effect on Arab attitudes simply by changing the pool of participants and the style of argument, creating new ways for individuals to stand out and enhance their reputation. They could open up a space for influential Arab intellectuals to triangulate between the extremes, staking out a new, reasonable middle ground.

To change Arab attitudes, the United States could begin by addressing the nearly unanimous consensus on American insincerity in calling for democracy. American policymakers have long hesitated about promoting democracy for Arabs out of fear that Islamists might win free elections. Now that political liberalization has been put forward as such a prominent American objective, however, the only way for the United States to retain any credibility in Arab eyes is by demonstrating its willingness to accept unpalatable electoral outcomes -- as it eventually did, albeit with bad grace, in Turkey recently.

Arab liberals complain that they have long been fighting for human rights and public freedoms without any palpable American support and ask why things should be any different now, at a time when the war on terror and public outrage over Iraq have made Arab regimes ever more repressive. They want to believe American promises and credit American good intentions, but Washington must give them a reason to do so. The goal should be to establish the United States, through words and deeds, as an ally of the Arab public in its own demands for liberal reform, rather than making such reform an external imposition. A recent al Hayat essay nicely captured Arab ambivalence about the United States' role: "We need to reform our educational systems even though the Americans tell us to."

Certainly, no amount of dialogue will change Arab opinions about the United States and its intentions absent tangible changes in policy. But just as certainly, changes in policy cannot and will not speak for themselves. Pressing the Israeli government to dismantle settlements, allowing genuinely representative Iraqi elections, easing the visa process for Arabs to visit the United States -- all of these could help repair the damage incurred over the last couple of years, but only if they are explained through open debate in credible and independent Arab media.

A dialogue with Arabs offers no magic bullets. It requires patience and self-restraint, a sustained commitment to efforts that might not deliver immediate gratification. The Bush administration has to set aside its distaste for diplomacy, its penchant for threats and coercion and its tendency to divide the world into simplistic categories of good and evil. But given the changes that have taken place in the Arab world in recent years, such a dialogue might well be the best, and perhaps the only, way to make progress in achieving the lofty goals that President Bush has laid out for the Middle East.

reference=http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/8956