The Real Roots of Arab Anti-Americanism 5/6
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The fact is that most other countries in the world -- including many in Europe -- have an equal or better case for being angry at the United States than do those in the Middle East. Yet only there does this hatred take on such an intensive and popular form. Nowhere else, for example, can one find popular and governmental support for terrorist attacks against the United States.
This fact points to one other explanation for Arab anti-Americanism. Such sentiment is a useful way to disparage a set of attractive ideas linked to America -- such as political freedom or modernization -- that might otherwise take hold in the region. In this sense, anti-Americanism becomes a response to globalization and Westernization.
OF MOUSE OR MAN?
One final point about Arab anti-Americanism should be mentioned. At its heart, such rage invokes a contradictory vision of its target. To justify outrage against the United States, the enemy must be portrayed as a bully. But to encourage challenges against it, the United States must also be depicted as a weakling. Revolutionaries and radical states are frustrated by the fact that too many Arabs and Muslims already fear the United States or even see its friendship as desirable. If America is so powerful, why fight it or those it protects?
To be effective, anti-Americanism must therefore persuade masses and leaders that the United States is simultaneously horrible and helpless, and that it will not do anything if it is attacked, ridiculed, or disregarded. Powerless against their own dictators and dysfunctional polities and dissatisfied with their societies, every Arab or Muslim may at least feel it possible to spit on the United States and get away with it.
Consequently, anti-Americanism is most encouraged not by a belief that the United States is too tough but that it is weak, meek, and defeatable. Far from attacking the United States because it is really a big bully, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and others have urged attacks to prove that the United States was a paper tiger. Unsurprisingly, these same leaders have made it clear that, in their view, power -- not popularity -- is the most important factor for political success. As Syria's late president, Hafiz al-Assad, once noted, "It is important to gain respect, rather than sympathy." Bin Laden has agreed, commenting that people always back the side that looks strongest. Western weakness in confronting Hitler, wrote Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Nizar Hamdoon, encouraged Nazi aggression (as well, presumably, as Saddam Hussein's).
As these comments suggest, it has been the United States' perceived softness in recent years, rather than its bullying behavior, that has encouraged the anti-Americans to act on their beliefs. After the United States failed to respond aggressively to many terrorist attacks against its citizens, stood by while Americans were seized as hostages in Iran and Lebanon, let Saddam Hussein remain in power while letting the shah fall, pressured its friends and courted its enemies, and allowed its prized Arab-Israeli peace process be destroyed, why should anyone have respected its interests or fear its wrath?
Astute Middle Eastern observers have made much of the United States' post-Vietnam loathing for foreign adventures. In the 1970s, when many Iranians worried that Washington would destroy their revolution if it went too far, Khomeini told them not to worry, saying America "cannot do a damn thing." And as recently as 1998, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Khomeini's successor, insisted there was no need to negotiate with the United States since Tehran had shown that Washington was too weak to be feared or heeded.
Saddam Hussein has similarly tried to persuade Arabs and Muslims of U.S. weakness. He has interpreted U.S. efforts at conciliation as proof that Washington fears confronting him. By evincing no strong reaction to Iraq's use of chemical weapons against the Kurds, threats against Israel, outspoken anti-Americanism, or ultimatum to Kuwait, U.S. policy helped precipitate a much bigger crisis in August 1990.
In a February 24, 1990, speech to an Arab summit, Saddam told Arabs that they had three options. They could give up, wait until Europe was stronger and play it off against America, or unite behind a strong leader who could defeat the United States. Americans, he insisted, feared military confrontations and losses. It had shown "signs of fatigue, frustration, and hesitation" in Vietnam and Iran and had quickly run away from Lebanon "when some marines were killed" by suicide bombers in 1983. Experience had shown, he concluded, that if Iraq acted boldly, the United States would do nothing. |
