May 10, 2003

American Goodwill

Interesting question about whether America spent or squandered the world goodwill.

The one line that really caught my eye is:


In short, the United States has been on the wrong side of Arab history for almost five decades, and it is not doing much better than the Soviets. The old policy had no future, only a past. It was a dead policy walking. September 11 was merely the death certificate.

So both the US and the Soviets were on the wrong side of Arab history. Since we had diametrically opposed approaches, the author is really saying that Arab history had no future.

Without change. And September 11 was so much a death as it was a resurrection.

It was the resurrection of hope in the region. It was the resurrection of progress instead of regression. It was the resurrection of freedom instead of tyranny and despotism.

Sometimes, the resurrection just takes a while. Afghanistan and Iraq have already experienced the most painful change - the change from living death to life. The rest of the region will slowly but surely follow. It is no longer a question of will they, but when.

The revolution has begun. We didn't gain our independence in two years. We shouldn't expect the entire Middle East to gain its independence in two or even five years. Now is when we need to start working on their timetable - with some occasional prodding, of course.

Bin Laden will never realize the unintended consequences of the revolution he really kicked into high gear on 9/11. Rather than starting a final war for Islamic domination, he has begun the freeing of one of the most repressed regions of the world.

We didn't spend or squander the goodwill of the world. We invested it in this great project of rebuilding the Middle East. It will be one of the best investments in goodwill we will ever make.

We will be better off for the revolution.


Posted by Chris at May 10, 2003 11:35 AM | TrackBack | Linked by:
Comments

"Since we had diametrically opposed approaches"

Is this true? We supported tyrants who would sell us oil and not invade Israel. The Soviets supported tyrants who would attack Israel and US policies. While we opposed eachother we both used the same approach; tyrants. Thus we left the Arabs on the wrong side of history, mired in tyranny.

Posted by: Richard A. Heddleson at May 17, 2003 05:28 PM

Good insight, Richard. And I'm glad that policy is dead...

Posted by: rosignol at May 17, 2003 05:56 PM

You're right. Rereading it I meant to say diametrically opposed doctrines. Both sides were very Machiavellian in the approaches to their doctrine. The Soviets wanted to halt the spread of capitalism; we wanted to halt the spread of communism. Both of us claimed that the use of tyrants (the means) was justified by our doctrine (the ends).

After the fall of the Soviet Empire, we changed our doctrine to call for a halt in the spread of fundamentalist Islam. Our approach did not change, only the target of our doctrine.

Still, with 9/11 the old doctrine went out the window and we can only be better for it.

Posted by: Chris at May 17, 2003 09:48 PM

I disagree that Iraq has been through the most painful change. They still have not been "de-Ba'athified" of the Ba'ath officials who were responsible for the terror. When you see angry mobs in the streets shouting anti-American slogans you are seeing mostly ex-Ba'athist officials trying to re-assert their old power. The Americans have not crushed the soul of the party beliefs like they did with German Nazis and Japanese militants. If they don't deal with this soon, they will simply be re-installing the old tyranny back into power minus the 55.

Posted by: Adbul Said Al-Rahim at May 18, 2003 12:21 AM

It's coming. The low-key/light-touch administration ended with the replacement of the people who had been in charge in Iraq- it wasn't working, so now they're going to try something else.

I expect the new people to be *much* more aggressive about de-baathification and keeping the mullahs on a leash. That crap about "it will be permitted to torch theaters, etc" is not going to be tolerated.

Posted by: Rosignol at May 18, 2003 01:45 AM

One of the good things in American culture is that we do not hang onto to failures.

It is clear that the original ideas for governing Iraq were failing and would continue to fail so we are quickly switching to plan B and I suspect, coming up with plan C.

Posted by: Tallan at May 18, 2003 07:47 PM


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