Leaders' failure masked by attacks on an easy target

The United States and the Muslim world have been on a crash course for some time – well before an anti-Islam film sparked protests in Muslim countries and communities worldwide in recent days. 

Some may argue that the seed of this conflict was sown in the 1950s, when the US together with the British helped engineer the ouster of Iranian nationalist prime minister Mohammed Musadeq and restored the shah to his throne.  Some will trace this discontent back even further, to the creation of the state of Israel after the Second World War, and the successive regional wars that saw the Jewish state gain even more ground. 

A leading scholar of political Islam, Professor Gilles Kepel of Sciences Po, Paris, argues that the US fell into a trap by taking up the bait offered by Muslim terrorists who attacked the World Trade Centre in New York, thus luring Washington into attacking a much weaker Muslim country – Afghanistan.

It worked to the extent that it united the Muslim world against the US, but only for a brief moment. The anti-US sentiment engineered by groups such as al-Qaeda was not sustainable. After all, the real prize for Islamists is their own respective Muslim states. Like the Shi’ite Mullahs in Iran, Sunni Islamists want to overthrow the existing powers and take control of state apparatus throughout the Islamic world. In this respect, the US and its Western allies are caught up in somebody else’s civil war. 

In the 1970s and ’80s the guns were turned against the leaders of Muslim countries. Remember who killed Anwar Sadat of Egypt, and how?  According to Kepel, that strategy didn’t work in terms of uniting Muslim people against their leaders, many of whom were corrupt and dictatorial. In other words, the post-colonial Middle Eastern states did not provide the promised goods and services that the people were expecting. 

At the beginning of the presidency of Barack Obama, the US sought rapprochement with the Muslim world, as evidenced by his famous speech in Cairo. He challenged Muslims to embrace democracy and set up elected governments that respect the wishes of the people. He also stated that the US is not, and will never be, against Islam. 

But old resentment dies hard, and the ongoing protests against the anti-Islam film across the world are being vented against US consulates and embassies. It didn’t matter that Obama came out to condemn the film. The fuse was lit and the flame burned inside the hearts of Muslims, still angry over US policies of the past few decades. Some even suggest that diplomatic ties should be severed.

Of course, relations vary between the US and each Muslim country, which explains why the texture of each demonstration varies from place to place. Some Muslim leaders have come out to condemn the attacks against the US embassies, and have promised to beef up security. It may be a difficult thing to do, politically speaking, but these leaders must continue to publicly explain to their people why a relationship with America is important for their statehood, commerce and international standing. 

Hitting the US like a punching bag is easy, and many Muslim leaders tend to allow that to happen on their own soil because, the way they see it, it’s better that America gets hit than they do by their own people. But in the final analysis, it is the leaders of each state who have to come up with the deliverables – the essential goods and services for their people. 

Incidents of Koran-burning and crude films such as the one produced by an Egyptian Coptic Christian and other hate-mongers living in the US or elsewhere will come and go. But in the end, leaders will have to answer to their own people. They will be faced with demands for better housing, employment and proper healthcare. Many people in the Arab world are committed to democracy and freedom, and it would be wrong for the US to retreat from them at this point in time. The US played a big role in ensuring that the Arab Spring materialised and was able to spread far and wide, and Washington must continue to stay the course and not allow a dreadful hate-video to hijack its foreign policy.