Your very post demonstrates the volatility of public opinion, and the fact that polls are snapshots of current reactions, which makes them somewhat unreliable as predictors of where matters will finally land, and why intelligent leaders take public opinion into account, but do not let it determine policy. It also demonstrates the essential point, however you have tarted it up with activities that could be criticized. Resentment of the United States in Europe, for example, is not mainly over particular short term policies, but over the whole phenomenon of neoliberalism and its associated globalization. Although there is enough support for the WTO to continue working towards a true free trade regime, there is a lot of resistance in Europe, and I have read (in Le Monde) that there has been some pandering to the "altermondialistes" (opponents of globalizing policies) by both the Left and Right, insofar as some portion of mainstream voters have been infected with such attitudes, though in milder forms.
Similarly, Chirac was already the Apostle of Multipolarity, he just took the occassion of Iraq to make a stand against falling into line with the United States, and demonstrating European independence. The French papers are quite clear that he embraced the principle of using the EU as an alternative pole quite independently of the specific controversy, on the grounds that there a unipolar world was dangerous and unseemly. That is certainly arguable, but has nothing to do with a specific grievance, and everything to do with a reaction to the current role of the United States in the world.
Finally, Islamicism is not a wholly rational construct, but entails a mythic account for the degradation of Muslims, and especially the Arabs, vis a vis the mainly Christian "West". In earlier times, the Muslims created a sophisticated and wealthy civilization, and, under the Turks, pressed Europe hard. What happened? The Muslims suffered due to imperfect piety, and eventually arose the Great Satan of Power, Wealth, Consumerism, Libertinism, and Impiety to push secularism and democracy, and seduce the Muslims once and for all away from the pure faith. We are the Great Satan, not because of this and that we did wrong, but because it is the only explanation that jibes with the idea of the material success of the faithful, supposing they had not faltered and been punished......... |
