Transcript - Silenced Majorities

SILENCED MAJORITIES

NARRATOR: War and sectarian violence in Iraq, the invasion and destruction of Lebanon, a threatened attack on Iran. To judge by the headlines, you’d think there’s no room for compromise in the ever-conflicted Middle East, and there is indeed deep-seated bitterness.

BRITTANY: America interferes with the politics of other nations, despite the fact that America has mainly internal problems that need to be fixed. In other words, their house is made of glass and yet they would throw stones at other people.

NARRATOR: But both anecdotal evidence and survey research reveals substantial unheard majorities in both the Muslim world and the west, seeking accommodation in what all believe is ultimately a self-destructive argument.

BRITTANY: I believe most American people are nice. The government’s actions, however, are not an accurate reflection of the American people in general.

NARRATOR: Today on A World of Possibilities, Silenced Majorities: Yearning for Peace in a War Weary Middle East. Hopeful observers at all levels of society, in the Muslim world and the United States, explore the opportunities and obstacles to reconciliation in the epicenter of human conflict.

RAMI KHOURI: These tensions that are being stoked by people on both sides are done by a small minority of people. The difference is that in the Arab world they are a minority that is completely out of the mainstream, while in the United States and in Israel they’re in fact very much part of the ruling elite.

MALE: The problem is primarily seen in the mind of the American public as being located in limited groups, groups that have a fair amount of influence.

NARRATOR: A specially commissioned survey in both the Muslim world and the United States, illuminates the complexity and ambivalence of feelings on all sides of this archetypal human argument.

MALE: Americans do support the idea of the United States being willing to be even-handed. We can be supportive of Israel in a general sense but that doesn’t mean we have to be unconditionally supportive.

NARRATOR: I’m Mark Sommer. Join us as we walk the wall between Islam and the west in search of openings to reconciliation. Welcome to A World of Possibilities. Come with us now to Beirut, the ancient fabled Lebanese capital, whose origins date back to the 15^thcentury BC. Perched on the shores of the Mediterranean it’s one of the most cosmopolitan and diverse cities in the Middle East. Here we find Rami Khoury, Editor at Large of the Daily Star, a newspaper with a circulation that stretches throughout the region. A man of many worlds, Rami was raised and educated both in the Middle East and the United States. He’s a Palestinian Jordanian Christian, who also holds US citizenship. He’s taught at Harvard as an internationally recognized expert on the US Middle East relations. We reached Rami Khoury by phone in his office at the Daily Star, just as the Israeli bombardment of Beirut came to an end.

RAMI KHOURI: My sense is that the divisions that are taking place, the tensions between the, say the Arabs, the Islamic world whatever you want to call it, the Middle East, and the United States particularly in some other parts of the west, those divisions are almost completely political, they have very little to do

with culture or religion. A small group of troublemakers in the western world and in Israel are trying to stoke the claims of religious antagonism; they’re trying to make this a cultural battle or civilizational battle or religious battle, which it’s not. You have a small group of terrorists like Osama bin Laden and criminals like him, who carry out their criminal deeds, and then these are mirrored in the United States and Israel and parts of Europe with the same kind of extremists, almost maniacal ideology, very violent, very inaccurate and exaggerated and racist in many ways. So these kinds of tensions that are being stoked by people on both sides, are done by a small minority of people. The difference is that in the Arab world they’re a minority that is completely out of the mainstream, while in the United States and in Israel they’re in fact very much part of the ruling elite. This is a real problem, it’s getting worse and there are small groups of criminals, extremist criminals, marginalized people, who will try to do outrageous things and they must be stopped. But they will only be stopped by the majorities in the western world and the Arab Islamic world identifying together what are the real issues here and how can we resolve them through a peaceful, diplomatic, rational process that identifies the real issues, the real grievances on both sides, the concerns that are there, and responds to them through the application of democracy and the rule of law and principles of equity and consent of the government, rather than just hurling accusations and clichés and silly stereotypes.

NARRATOR: What you seem to have today in Iraq or between Hezbollah and Israel and in a number of different situations, is unequal, asymmetric forces arrayed against each other – one that is very marginal and relatively small, what you call the criminal extremist element, and the other, you know, the most powerful nations on earth. Though they’re capable of dropping bombs, they seem with each bomb to be producing broader sympathy for their opposition.

RAMI KHOURI: Well, I would first disagree with your analysis in the sense that I wouldn’t put Hezbollah in the same boat as Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Hezbollah is a very different phenomenon and so is Hammas and the Muslim Brothers and all these Islamist movements all over the region, including the ones that have been in power in Turkey for two and a half years. These are nationalist movements mostly, they are mostly political movements, social movements, religious movements. And in the case of Hammas and Hezbollah they are resistance movements to Israeli occupation. So they are not the same kind of phenomenon, I think they have to be analyzed differently, even though it’s interesting that the American president and leadership and the Israeli leadership, they try to make them one group of people, they try to say that these are all extremists who use violence and they’re against freedom and they hate our liberty and all that, and this is just nonsense, I mean it’s a kind of an intellectual mediocrity but I think Bush, Blair and the Israeli leaders really should achieve a deeper, more accurate level of analysis, because the problem is that when you get powerful countries like the US and Israel and Great Britain making this kind of faulty analysis, and then backing it up with vicious policies using their incredible military power to do things as they did recently in Lebanon for instance just to try to wipe out the whole country, the reaction is what we’ve seen, which is stronger anti American, anti Israeli ant British sentiment all over the Middle East. And this sentiment is mobilized now into political movements like the Muslim Brothers and Hamas and Hezbollah and there are these guys winning elections. So you’re getting the response now, and the response is critical of the US, critical of Israel, critical of most of the Arab regimes, and this is an issue that I think everybody has to wake up to. Because what we’re seeing now is the third generation of Arabs since the 1940’s when the modern problem of the Arab Israeli conflict started, the third generation of Arabs is saying we’re not going to sit around and get humiliated and watch this stuff on CNN and Jazeera. We’re going to fight back and we’re going to do it efficiently, more efficiently than other generations of Arabs did, so I think this is something very, very important, what we’re witnessing in the last three, two, three, four years in Palestine and Lebanon.

NARRATOR: With the bombing of Lebanon, it appears as you say that that’s driven sentiment further in the direction of Hezbollah. Does it also implicitly also strengthen the role of these criminal elements?

RAMI KHOURI: Well yes, you’re getting both, I mean what’s happening is that the vast majority of peoplein this region are mobilizing around the mainstream Islamists and this is a very powerful force and the vast majority of people are moving in that direction, because they’ve been disappointed by the failures of nationalist and the ideological parties over the last 30, 40 years.

And so they’re finally turning to a combination of religious identity and cultural identity and national pan Arab pan Islamic and anti western, in a way anti imperialist resistance, is one dimension of this, and Hezbollah plays this out in the way that there’s a vanguard of people who are resisting Israeli and American hegemony. And that may be corrector not who knows, but this is how they’re portrayed and a lot of people respond to them. A small, very small number of people are going down to the basement and making bombs and joining the terrorists, but that’s a very small group and that group has never caught on in the Arab world. I mean this is what’s fascinating. You have us actually finding that it’s not making headway, it doesn’t have mass appeal, most Arabs certainly Muslims reject what it stands for because it is criminal and immoral and counterproductive. So I think this is a really important point that people in Israel and the west particularly should understand, that the majority of people in the Arab Islamic region don’t like Al-Zahiri and don’t respond to what they do, don’t support them. They prefer to go with people who work within the rule of law and within the prevailing political systems, especially when they’re after democratic elections and people are happy to get involved with that. At the same time, they don’t like the Israeli occupation or American occupation, they don’t like western hegemonic bullying and they don’t like being threatened by Condoleezza Rice all the time or Donald Rumsfeld so you know, the Rumsfeldian and Condoleezza Rice view of the world and the Osama bin Laden and Al-Zahiri view of the world are equally unattractive to the majority of people in this region.

NARRATOR: Let’s talk about that massive majority. Where, how can it find its voice because its own government, say in the case of Saudi Arabia or Egypt or various other regimes in the middle east Arab world, those are not particularly democratic themselves and they often are accused by moderate Arabs of essentially deflecting resentment of their own authoritarian governments on to Israel, but not really materially helping resolve the situation. How do you respond to that?

RAMI KHOURI: Well, this is the problem as seen from the perspective of the average citizen in the Arab world, that we really have three dilemmas that we have to deal with. One is our own Arab government, most of whom have not done a very good job on any level; the Arab governments generally have been disappointing. The second problem is Israel and the third problem is the western powers. Used to be the French and the British, now it’s mostly the US. And the reality is that the western countries, the US and Europe, have supported most of these Arab police states for 40, 50 years, and they thought they were great and they loved them, in fact they gave them stability, but they didn’t. And Bush to his credit, it’s one of the few things I agree with him, is he said recently in the last year or two, he said that while we supported these autocrats for 60 years, they didn’t bring democracy, they didn’t bring stability, they didn’t bring security so our policies were wrong. And he’s right, and it’s to Bush’s credit that he would recognize that. Unfortunately he’s chosen the wrong policy to be an antidote to the six decades of wrong policies, he’s now added a new wrong policy to replace it. Which is to use military force and political bullying and threats to force changes and to change regimes. And it’s not working, if you have Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon, all four of them have been in war, collapsing governments, rising crime, chaos, extremism, anti Americanism, anti Israeli sentiment, people rebelling against their own governments, the collapse of central authority, the rise of militias and gangs and virtually everything that the US says it wants to achieve in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Lebanon is not being achieved and the US is promoting exactly the opposite of what it says. So these are real problems that the US has to wake up and face, making the Arab world more democratic certainly is a priority for the people of this region. We’ve been asking for it for 40, 50 years while the US was supporting the autocrats, and it’s actually an opening where the US should understand that promoting democracy actually is a possible way to guide a good American policy in this region, but it has to be done in consultation and cooperation with the people here, and we have to together forge a policy, a consistent policy all over the region, you can’t just say you want to promote democracy in Iraq with a war, and then forget about promoting democracy in Tunisia and Egypt and Libya. You can’t just pick your countries that you want to choose democracy and leave the others, we’re not breakfast cereals on the shelf in a supermarket that you can just pick the one you want one week and next week pick another one. I think the Arab world is eager to work with the United States

promoting democracy and freedom and sovereignty and ending occupation. That has to be done in a way that is jointly defined by the western world and the Arab world and applied equitably all over the region, not whimsically or selectively.

NARRATOR: How would the west actually promote democracy? Right now you say it can’t be done through arms, and when democratic governments, or governments are democratically elected say in Palestinian territories or elsewhere or even in Iraq, they end up often differing with the United States in ways that the United States greatly resents. How do you essentially decolonize the American role in the Middle East?

RAMI KHOURI: I think you do it by dropping the colonial imperative, which is that you need to control the outcome of all of it. If the United States is really committed to democracy, which most of us don’t believe now, based on the US’s behavior. But if it is really committed, it has to accept the outcome of democratic elections. I mean if the United States had embraced Hamas in Palestine and said fine, this is the result of a democratic election, we accept democracy, we think this is critically important, we want to work with Hamas and to embrace the fruits of democracy and I think is the way that the United States should go, while making clear where it has foreign policy differences. You know, this is what the United States did with Russia, with communist China as you used to call it years ago. You can’t just attack people militarily and politically and sanction people that you disagree with. What you have to do is engage them, make it clear to them that you have disagreements, use carrots and sticks, use available diplomatic and economic and political tools that are within the realm of what is moral and legally and acceptable in the process of nations interacting with one another you know. This is not the first time that countries interact with one another, I mean it’s the first time you have a Neo-Con driven Whitehouse, but that’s an American problem to deal with. The rest of the world continues to operate according to rules that have been established for several hundred years about how countries deal with each other, and if you have differences you talk about them, you negotiate them, you work them out. So the United States has to play by the rules, it can’t talk about promoting democracy and then practice autocracy and despotism and militarism and unilateral predatory policies. It has to be consistent, it has to be credible, it has to be seen to be legitimate in its promoting democracy and freedom.

NARRATOR: You spoke of the moderate majority in the Middle East in the Arab world. In your view is there an equivalent moderate majority in the west? And if so, how can those two majorities connect and prevail? It seems like the governments themselves are not going to be the ones to create this convergence.

RAMI KHOURI: Yeah, I think there is a moderate reasonable sensible majority all over the US and the western world, there’s no doubt about it, and this comes through in things like public opinion polls when you ask people about things like for instance an Arab Israeli settlement. Majorities in Europe and the US consistently say well yes, there should be end of occupation and statehood for both people and solve the refugee problem based on law. They don’t accept occupation and annexation and subjugation as means of solving conflict. So therefore the moderate majority that is there among the American people is not reflected in American foreign policy, because at this point policy is formed according to pushes and pulls and interests and lobby groups and pressures in Washington. And therefore you get these terrible distortions, and the kind of American triumphalist foreign policy, which is probably creating more problems for the US than solving. And you’re seeing the cost of that, I mean one of the costs is that a few of these people in the middle east will finally get fed up of being treated like animals over three or four decades and they start behaving like animals and they become terrorists and they go and attack the US. So I think we need to activate those majorities in the Arab world and in the US and in the west as a whole. What we need is better leadership; more courageous more honest leaders and unfortunately we don’t have that right now. I guess the thing to do is for everybody to work politically and elect better leaders, in the Middle East, and in Israel and in the US.

NARRATOR: Journalist Rami Khoury speaking from Beirut. After a short break we open up the debate to find out what Americans and people from the Muslim world really think about each other.

You’re listening to A World of Possibilities, a production of the Mainstream Media Project. To hear the podcast of this program and to access our show archives, please visit our website ataworldofpossibilities.com or visit iTunes.

NARRATOR: We’ve been frustrated by the dominance of small but powerful groups in the US foreign policy debate. What we wanted to find out was what ordinary people think about Muslim US relations, those who have no stake in the power structure or the argument, and a large stake in its outcome. So we commissioned the program on international policy attitudes at the University of Maryland to conduct a public opinion survey in the United States and three diverse Muslim countries: Indonesia, Egypt and Morocco. Participants in the survey responded to both forced choice and open ended questions about their views on the divide between the United States and the Muslim world and about whether it was possible to find solutions to this complicated conflict. To discuss these findings, we turn now to Steven Kull, a Political Psychologist and Director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes, who joins us from the studios of ABC Radio in Washington DC.

How much have American images of the Islamic world changed since 9/11? Do you see a large uptake in suspicion and hostility?

STEVEN KULL: Yes there’s something you might have expected and it’s somewhat surprising that that is not very much the case. There have been some signs of negative movement but it’s not anything sweeping, to the extent that there was some surge after 9/11 that has died down some. You would see a kind of conscious effort on the part of Americans to differentiate between Islam and these radicals, these extremists. We’re making a mental effort to not paint all of Islam with the same brush strokes. Many Americans have heard this argument that there is some kind of clash of civilizations that creates a fundamental enmity between them, and two thirds of Americans reject that argument. Two thirds say that it is possible to find common ground, there are enough human commonalities that we can find a way to live together. And the problem is primarily seen in the mind of the American public as being located in limited groups, groups that have a fair amount of influence. And there’s also a perception that the governments there are not highly representative and so that the needs of the people aren’t being met, and that this stimulates frustration that can be expressed in all kinds of ways. And it’s easy for them to redirect that toward the United States.

NARRATOR: From the American side, what are people suggesting would be the, not the basis but the kinds of policies that would have to be enacted from the American side in order for a common ground to be reached?

STEVEN KULL: Americans think that the United States should play an even handed role in the Israeli Palestinian conflict and in the Arab Israeli conflict and that the US should be a kind of honest broker in the region, and there’s a perception that the US does not do that. Another feeling is that the US should not simply withdraw entirely but should disengage to some extent, should reduce its military presence. There is a perception on the part of Americans that the US military presence in the region is not welcomed by the people in the region, and that’s a correct perception.

NARRATOR: Let’s turn for a moment to Muslim attitudes towards the United States. Moving to Morocco and Egypt and some of the responses we received from there. Here’s one I believe it’s from Morocco. “I

think that America plays an important role in the world and the world cannot do without her. In the end America is the freedom tribune and we hope that she will be more just on many issues.”

STEVEN KULL: I think that perception of America as the freedom tribune is a widespread review that America has some very positive values. The perception though is that America does not always act on them; that the people who get in charge are not necessarily motivated by those values that are laudable and that they get taken over by the desire to have power and money and so on, so that America is in the end not a positive influence.

NARRATOR: Let’s turn now to some of the responses to Steven’s polling. You will hear answers and opinions spoken in Arabic by Talal Beriti, and in Bahasa Indonesian spoken by Abdullah Balbed. Our producer Brittany Danicsh reads the English translation. First participants in the survey were asked if they thought the US had a mainly positive or negative influence in the world and why.

BRITTANY: All the politics show that America cares about its interests even if it goes against the interests of others. America interferes with the politics of other nations, despite the fact that America has mainly internal problems that need to be fixed. In other words, their house is made of glass and yet they would throw stones at other people. The US government’s policies seem not to be in accordance with its people’s aspirations. I believe most American people are nice, their government’s actions however are not an accurate reflection of the American people in general. The Americans always feel superior to people from other countries. They think that everything that is different from America to be ancient. The US government justifies its actions in the name of world peacefulness, but when something goes wrong they never acknowledge their mistakes. Under the pretext of the war on terror or anti nuclear causes, the US has invaded Islamic countries. The US’s real intention is to take over the assets of other countries like Iraq for its own benefit. America didn’t need to play this role in the world because other countries know their own people better. It would have been better for America to support the countries that are pursuing reforms but without interfering with the process of change in a direct way, as if it was the greatest ruler and that no one can refuse its orders. In other words, it reincarnated the tyrannical role and dictatorship but in a new image.

NARRATOR: Respondents to Dr. Kull’s poll were also asked to identify specifically what the US has done that’s negative.

BRITTANY: The interference with the internal affairs of other countries. The lack of interest in the humanitarian side of the economies of developing countries and the poor. Oppression of Arabs and Muslims in general, supporting Israel and its hatred for Palestine, the non-justified invasion of Iraq, violation of human rights and the arrests and spying on individuals. Invasion of Iraq is one negative thing America has done. America did it in the name of humanitarian help for Iraqis but the real intention was to take control of the oil fields. This is very clear now. Even though Saddam Hussein has been brought down, American military force still maintained control over Iraq. America’s also eyeing Iran and the issue of nuclear weapons. We can see very clearly that America seems to be allergic to Islamic countries. This creates a discriminatory attitude against Muslim people all over the world.

NARRATOR: Looking towards solutions, participants in the study were asked whether it’s possible to find common ground between Islamic and western cultures.

BRITTANY: We share the same value in humanity. Islam is based on understanding others and finding common characteristics between people. It is also based on the trust of openness and Western mentality, which accepts other cultures. The foundation of both cultures is good. Islam is adaptive and western culture is flexible. Actually, both cultures could go hand in hand but problems arise when some individuals act in the name of Islam using extreme means. They should not be considered to represent Islam as a

whole. Up to now, neither culture has tried to understand the other. The problems arise when one culture is measured by the other’s standards.

NARRATOR: Back now with Dr. Steven Kull, who conducted the study.

Given that you’re finding majorities of public opinion on all sides, interested in reconciliation in very pragmatic terms, doesn’t at some point public opinion has to turn into public action, not just amorphous sentiment, in order for it to actually weigh in and make a change in policy. Is that so?

STEVEN KULL: Well, you’re never going to have the majority of people out on the street. The people who are politically active will always be a minority. The majority can assert itself through the ballot box, and even in societies that are not real democracies, public opinion does play some role in creating a sense of legitimacy and a sense of confidence on the part of leaders that they can actually lead people and that they aren’t going to be overthrown. So what is key is for the public to be heard, for the public to have a clear voice and for that to be a kind of guiding principle in directing policy among policy makers. The more people communicate tends to lead toward that broader voice coming through, potentially then overriding the voice of the more strident extremists.

NARRATOR: Foreign policy pollster Steven Kull. I’m Mark Sommer and this is A World of Possibilities, distributed by the WFMT Radio Network.

This is A World of Possibilities, a production of the Mainstream Media Project. If you wish to contact us, please direct emails to comments@aworldofpossibilities.com. This program is distributed by the WFMT Radio Network.

NARRATOR: I’m Mark Sommer and this is A World of Possibilities. This program, Silenced Majorities: Yearning for Peace in a War Weary Middle East, is underwritten by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Coming up in this half hour, Muqtedar Khan, a Muslim from India now living in the United States, who finds himself in a relatively unique position to discuss the challenges of straddling the east west divide. But first we turn to Steven Walt, a Professor of Government and former administrative dean at Harvard’s Kennedy School, who speaks with us as he’s emerging from the wringer. In March 2006, he and his coauthor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, published a controversial paper asserting that an Israeli lobby of unrivaled power and influence was limiting debate within the US government and the media on new foreign policy approaches to the middle east conflict. The article provoked a firestorm in the United States and around the world, some commentators charged the authors with anti-Semitism while others called the article a wake up call on both sides of the ocean. To analyze how and why the Israeli Palestinian conflict plays such a pivotal role in defining US Muslim relations, Steven Walt joins us now from the studio at Harvard University in Cambridge Massachusetts.

What is it about the land of Israel, in addition to the obvious fact that it is the nexus of three religions, what is it about that region that, and that culture of clashing communities, that makes it in some ways the archetypal conflict of our time?

STEVEN WALT: Well I think one cannot overlook the point you just made about the intersection of several great religions. I think the second dimension to this that has made it so difficult to resolve for so many decades, is a sense of victim-hood on several sides. For the Israelis the sense that the creation of the state of Israel was the response to centuries of anti Semitism and persecution, culminating in the

holocaust during World War II and a very profound sense that their security now depended upon defending Israel really at all costs. And that of course resonates with communities in the Jewish Diaspora around the world, that sense that Israel is in some sense a symbol of Jewish survival but also a deeply passionately held commitment there, coming out of this sense of historical victim-hood. And then finally of course the sense of victimization on the Arab side as well, the sense that yes there were great crimes committed against the Jews over centuries, but they weren’t committed by Muslims. The holocaust was done by Europeans. Most anti Semitism and the worst forms of anti Semitism were done by Christians in Europe, not by Muslims, and yet the price that’s been paid for creating Israel was paid by Palestinian Arabs and by others. And I think that sense that both sides in a sense are victims has compounded that. Just one final thing is, this is also an arena of the world that has had extensive foreign intervention for several centuries as well, whether one thinks of the control for many centuries by the Ottoman Empire, by then the British and French colonial interventions in the 18^thand 19^thand 20^thcentury. The sense that the people who live in this area have in a sense not been in charge of their own fate. You put all those things together and you have I think a very potent recipe for trouble.

NARRATOR: Why would Muslims as far away as Indonesia, name the Palestinian Israeli conflict as being the number one issue for them, rather than things closer at home? And indeed in parallel, why would many Americans look to the Middle East as the prime sort of foreign policy problem? Why does, why do people transcend in that sense their own immediate concerns, or do they, in order to focus?

STEVEN WALT: I think certainly some people do. And we see this sense of vicarious identification across distances in lots of different contexts. Certainly, the sympathy the Jewish Americans feel for the state of Israel as part of being the larger world Jewish community. And we see that much of the same thing resonating now in the Islamic world, where the sense that there are Muslims in a particular part of the world who are being victimized can be a source of anger and frustration, particularly if it dovetails with the sense that this is also being led or supported by the United States, widely seen as the world’s most powerful country, and seen in many parts of the Islamic world now as in some sense deeply hostile or deeply suspicious of the Muslim world itself. You have to be very careful here, not every Muslim has the same set of feelings, just as not every Jewish American has a strong affinity for Israel, whatever. But many of them do. It’s there as a set of emotional feelings that can be tapped, particularly when there are events that are bringing those sort of into public consciousness on a daily basis.

NARRATOR: At the moment, both United States and Israel are not only super powers. Israel within its own region, a definite regional super power. United States worldwide, but in a certain sense super pariahs, in the sense that each of them is viewed with great hostility and criticism by much of the rest of the world, or at least their policies are. Is there a parallel here in which they’re both self-isolating at this point?

STEVEN WALT: I think great power always makes people nervous. And certainly one of the things the United States has faced in recent years is the perception around the world that maybe the United States is just a little bit too powerful and needs to be checked a bit, even by countries that are not hostile to us. And certainly that same concern is felt in the middle east, where although we tend to see Israel as surrounded by enemies, as a victim facing terrorist threat, that’s not the way it appears to all of Israel’s neighbors, who see it as substantially more powerful, see it as treating the Palestinians with great brutality and as we saw in the recent world with Lebanon, responding to a provocation by attacking widely throughout the entire country, killing far more people than it lost itself. So I think there’s some parallels to that. The other parallel though that I guess I would point to, and more in recent years for both countries, has been a penchant for unilateralism. Under the Bush administration the United States has tended to think that it could dictate rather than negotiate, that if we, you know, we were strong enough to essentially impose our preferred solutions on others. Whether it was through preventive war or through very aggressive diplomacy, and you see some similar parallels in the way Israel has behaved as well, attempting to impose unilateral solutions on the Palestinians, a penchant for preemptive or preventive action. So in that sense, those are exactly the kind of policies that tend to make the rest of the world more worried, more concerned, because it leads the rest of the world to wonder, well gee, what are these guys going to do next? And in both the Israeli and the American case, I think it’s been counter productive.

NARRATOR: The Lebanon war, that occurred in the summer of 2006, has it changed the image of Israel in the eyes of the world? I mean, there was already a negative image of it in the Muslim world. But in the United States, it has retained sort of the 1967 image as the plucky victim and the David against Goliath. But has Lebanon sort of reversed the roles here, so that Hezbollah begins to seem like the David?

STEVEN WALT: I don’t think there’s much sympathy for Hezbollah in the United States, but I do think Israel’s handling of the war did tarnish its image as the sort of white hat, to some degree. One’s here to draw a distinction between sort of popular views in the United States and elite views, and particularly views expressed by politicians. The American political elite was overwhelmingly pro Israeli. Congressmen giving speeches, signing letters, passing resolutions that were all staunchly in Israel’s camp. But if you looked more closely at public opinion, you saw support for Israel but you saw that it was starting to get somewhat softer. And in particular what you see I think fairly consistently is even though Americans are generally much more supportive of Israel than they are say of the Palestinians and most Arab countries, Americans do support the idea of the United States being willing to be even handed. We can be supportive of Israel in a general sense but that doesn’t mean we have to be unconditionally supportive. Politicians have to be because they get in political trouble if they’re not, but the rest of the American people understand that our interests would probably be better served by a somewhat more even handed policy. And I think that what happened in Lebanon is going to reinforce that general perception, that we’re not going to solve the very difficult challenges we face in the Middle East, if we can’t act somewhat more independently of Israel.

NARRATOR: Do you think there can be a kind of a soft landing here? In other words, that the conversation can be opened without it going to hysteria, so that there does begin to be a nuanced dialog?

STEVEN WALT: I very much hope that what you call a soft landing can happen, because we don’t want to have this fueling more sort of violent name calling, but more importantly we desperately need a soft landing in the region as well. Israel needs a soft landing in its relationship with its neighbors. We need a soft landing out of Iraq. We need a soft landing in our relationship with Iran, etc. etc. We’re not going to get those things if we cannot think very carefully and think long and hard and discuss amongst ourselves what the different issues and options are. We certainly can’t do it if the conversation is either stifled by censorship, by the fear of being attacked, or simply infused with so much passion and emotion that we can’t think carefully about these issues.

NARRATOR: Harvard Political Scientist Steven Walt, in a moment, Muslim American political analyst Muqtedar Kahn.

This is A World of Possibilities, a production of the Mainstream Media Project. Copies of this program are available on CD and can be requested by email at comments@aworldofpossibilities.com.

NARRATOR: As Muqtedar Kahn likes to say, American foreign policy is a public good. What’s true for Spiderman is also true for the United States. With great power comes great responsibility. As the sole superpower it’s the US’s responsibility to maintain global order and nurture the international system, not become a destabilizing force, but as a Muslim from India now living in the US he’s also quick to point out that people and governments in the Muslim world must also contribute to reconciliation with the west. Muqtedar Kahn first gained fame when just a few days after September 11^th, he wrote an impassioned public appeal to American Muslims calling them to engage in soul searching and reflection about why Muslims had been implicated in the crime.

His column was instantly reprinted in major US newspapers and he was catapulted to fame but as the full complexity of his views became known, Muqtedar Kahn lost his early allies in the Whitehouse and gained a broader following worldwide. Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware, he writes a blog on ijtaihad.org, and has lectured across North America, East Asia, the Middle East and Europe. He also writes columns published in 20 countries. Muqtedar Kahn joins us now by phone from the University of Delaware.

MUQTEDAR KHAN: It’s a very strange dilemma that people have. There is the sense of delight that Muslims experience when Americans do things like Abu Ghraib issue comes up, so it’s when they can morally criticize America. Muslims are very critical of US foreign policy. But when they get an opportunity to come and live in the US, they are quick to act upon it. To share an anecdote, this was before 9/11, I was being very critical of the Taliban, and there were people who would come up to me after my talk and say how dare you be critical of Taliban. The Taliban are the best and the purest Muslims, they are like the companions of the prophet. And I would turn round and think that you’re such a hypocrite, if these countries are so good why don’t you go and live in Afghanistan with them? Why do you live in this morally decadent society? So there is this dichotomy. We love to live here but we are angry, we are very hateful. But that’s not true of everybody. Since 9/11 the sort of the bubble or the myth of return has been busted, and more and more Muslims are beginning to realize that if push comes to shove they would choose America over their homeland. They couldn’t be better Muslims anywhere else, they’re free to establish mosques the way they like, they are free to practice their religion the way they choose and have a lot of money to do whatever they want.

NARRATOR: Many Muslims, American Muslims and Muslims in say the Middle East, are very critical of the regimes in their own countries, which they say have been supported by the United States for many years, dictatorships of various kinds. Those are American policies. Are such Muslims also critical of their own governments?

MUQTEDAR KHAN: The number one target of Islamic movement has been these big governments. Some things we have realized that the US is a significant barrier to fundamental changes in the Muslim world, by continuing to maintain the current kind of semi-fair dictatorial monarchical state, it has very tight control on the oil belt of the Muslims and it manages to keep the States friendly with Israel. The two biggest recipients of US aid is Egypt and Jordan, and they are also so friendly and pro Israel it’s unbelievable for Muslims.

NARRATOR: Do you give credence to that view, that the United States espouses democracy but is actually not interested in democracy in the Muslim world?

MUQTEDAR KHAN: Yes, I do believe that the US has been a significant barrier to development of democracy in the Muslim world. If you notice that what happens with democracy, the conduct of democratic countries do not comply with the US as easily as dictatorial countries do. So a democracy in the Muslim world would definitely make it far more difficult for the US to achieve its goal in the region. So I think it has never been in the US interest to see a democratization of the Middle East, until the threat of terrorism emerged, and so for the first time perceiving democracy as a national security interest, has happened in the US. I also believe the US has never really taken the humanity of the Muslim world seriously at all. There seems to be no moral gut wrenching over the facts that as a result of our policies, in2006 alone, 7000 people have died in Iraq. I’ve heard the president say so many times, they absolutely no justification for killing innocent people. But suddenly there seems to be a justification for killing innocent peoples if it means that US national interest has to be advanced. And so this, there is this element of hypocrisy on moral grounds in US foreign policy, which Muslims have become over the period quite acute and sensitive to.

NARRATOR: In the wake of the war in Lebanon, what do you think has changed if anything in attitudes towards the United States, among both American Muslims and Muslims in other parts of the world?

MUQTEDAR KHAN: One of the major struggles between so called moderate and so called radical Muslim, is how to interpret US war on terror. People like me argue that groups such as Al Qaeda are not in the interest of the US and the west, but they’re also primarily a major threat to the Muslim world. Al Qaeda has killed more Muslims than non-Muslims or Americans anywhere in the world. So Muslims who are moderate and who understand the threat of terrorism, try to argue that yes president Bush made a huge mistake by going into Iraq, he should not have done that, blah blah blah, but we must not let that dissuade us from recognizing the threat of extremism in the Muslim world. Muslims are also partly responsible for the mess that the world is in today. But those on the radical side, potentially say the US is using 9/11 as the justification for waging a war on Islam. So the war in Lebanon has helped the radicals to show to the rest of the Muslims who are undecided, that look didn’t we tell you that the US was hypocritical? The war in Lebanon has done a lot of damage to those of us who have tried to plead the US war on terror as essentially a security measure against terrorism, and have in turn risen and have helped enhance the argument that the US war on terror is essentially a war and it is targeting Muslims and Islam.

NARRATOR: It’s also interesting that Saddam Hussein was captured already years ago and yet the insurgency is stronger than ever. Does this tell us anything about what military force can and can’t achieve any more?

MUQTEDAR KHAN: The US is not able to handle the insurgency in Iraq. And Hezbollah’s performance against Israel in Lebanon has fairly indicated that the war on terror cannot be won through military means. Every time military is used it only strengthens those who are waging war against the west, and so Hezbollah is much stronger now, Iran is stronger. I believe that while Israel will bomb the hell out of Lebanon and killing Muslims on television, Al Qaeda must have run out of enrolment forms. So I think that this persistent decision by the Bush administration to use force, may have neither served vested interests nor has made the world a safer place.

NARRATOR: What do you think of the American approach to Iran, and what do you think it is doing if anything to Muslim opinion worldwide.

MUQTEDAR KHAN: Muslims recognize the fact that Muslim countries, who have not even acquired nuclear weapons, are being ostracized, while other countries which have illegally acquired nuclear weapons are being rewarded. The other thing about the Iranian issue is, the Iranian people are the most pro US people in the Middle East. 50% of Iranians are below the age of 20 and they do not share the same anti American sentiment that was fostered during and after the revolution. Iran is a highly educated and sophisticated society, so they do not like any other state, and so for them America is a sort of beacon of freedom.

NARRATOR: We had a polling firm conduct survey research and make comparisons across various divides to see how people felt, and one of the most striking results was that Muslims seemed to have more nuanced judgments than Americans were able to make in the direction of Muslims. Do you see that as well?

MUQTEDAR KHAN: I think this is a very common thing, if you travel through the Muslim world. Not only through the Muslim world but most third world countries where there are dictatorships, are already aware of the fact that their government’s position does not represent the people. So they have no trouble in translating that to the US, I mean the Iranian people today know that some of the things that have been done, have nothing to do with what they perceive about the US.

NARRATOR: Is there any way for that moderate majority of Muslims to unite with the moderate majority in the west and specifically in the United States to create a counter balance to the extremism in both worlds?

MUQTEDAR KHAN: Some changes have to take place, and those changes are that there has to be a shift in US foreign policy. There will be no just solution to the Palestinian Israeli conflict until Israel realizes that it cannot use the advantage of superior power to continue to get the best deal possible for itself at the expense of the Palestinians. The Americans have to realize that we have to make sure that the Palestinians get something which is dignified and just.

NARRATOR: Indian American Muslim analyst, Muqtedar Kahn. One of the most searing ironies of war and conflict, is how easily a few individuals or partisan factions, obsessed with a fruitless argument can trap whole societies in ceaseless, self-destructive combat. Until now they’ve been able to get away with it because the silenced majorities in each society have not been able to harness their collective power and intelligence to tip the balance in the direction of accommodation, and because they’ve been too easily manipulated by ever more sophisticated appeals to their most primitive emotions, but that situation may be changing. We now have in our hands the means to break the stranglehold of extremism, in the Middle East and around the world. Civil society, the sleeping giant that is the rest of us, acting as citizens rather than subjects, is now emerging as a potent new force in human affairs alongside governments, corporations and terrorists. With ever more of us becoming educated and connected, we’re beginning to find one another, locate our common interests and act upon them in ways that no longer depend solely on our paralyzed public institutions to enact. These developments have direct relevance for the core conflict of our time, the unholy war in the holy land. Some wars end not when one side wins but when the warring parties realize that the costs of conflict overwhelm any possible benefits, when the losses have grown so catastrophic that all sides say, enough! Israel’s one time warrior, Yitzhak Rabin, uttered just such words when he moved to reconcile with his nation’s hostile neighbors, but he was perhaps too soon for his time. He paid the ultimate price for his courage, as have Egypt’s Anwar Sadat in an earlier effort at reconciliation. In order for such figures to lead in bold ways, they need millions of others, both in their own and each other’s countries and around the world, not just to watch and wait or silently wish for their success, but to create a space in front of them where they can safely move. We must refuse to be lead by our fears and instead lead by our self-confidence. There are more than enough of us to meet the challenge. When will we summon the courage to step past our fears, to seize this historic opportunity? I’m Mark Sommer and this has been A World of Possibilities. Thanks for listening.

You’ve been listening to A World of Possibilities. For more information on today’s topic, please click on the listener action link at aworldofpossibilities.com. This program was produced and edited by Chuck Rogers, Tim Silva, Britney Danish, Susan Semenov and Cathy Parlato. Production engineer is Chuck Johnson. Support for this program was provided by the Rockefeller brothers Fund. Music is courtesy of Hollywood music center, Putumayo World Music, Bibbly Wax Music, Digital Pressure, RCN Music and ATO Records. This program was distributed by the WFMT Radio Network. Thank you for listening.

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