Sixteen months have passed since the terrorist assault on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon. American forces have killed and caught
hundreds of suspected members of the al-Qaida conspiracy.
Yet, nobody knows how many cells and individuals throughout the world
may still be planning to destroy life and property, not only of Americans
but also of others seen as America's collaborators. Where and with what
weapons are they going to strike next? We are now less secure than ever
when we go abroad, particularly to Muslim countries.
No end is in sight to this unprecedented confrontation between the paranoid
anti-American Muslim extremists and the assertive anti-Muslim and anti-Arab
voices in our government, in our media, and among intolerant Christians
and Jews. President Bush apparently continues to believe that anti-American
militancy can be wiped out solely by military means. Steadfastly, he
and Congress are refusing to deal with the well-known root causes of
the evil: America's increasing multi-billion dollar support for the
Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, as well as the anti-American
backlash in the mosques and schools of Muslim extremists.
Instead of using America's crucial influence upon our Israeli friends
to end the conflict that is so costly for both them and us, the Bush
administration continues to ignore the worldwide calls for American
arbitration and instead made the disarmament of Iraq its first priority.
While hardly anybody sides with Saddam Hussein's tyrannical regime,
our allies rightly fear that every time American bombs kill Muslims,
the hostility toward the United States will only increase further. If
we do not want innocent Americans killed, we have to prevent the killing
of innocent Muslims. Would we want to be killed or maimed as "collateral
damage" in a frivolous bombing campaign? Would Americans or Israelis
allow trigger-happy foreign troops on their soil for decades? How can
freedom-loving people express outrage over the Palestinians' audacity
to fight for their lives, liberties, and property?
To reduce--and ultimately end-- the scourge of terrorism, both we and
our Israeli protégés will some day have to enter upon
a broad-based campaign of reconciliation with the Muslim world, even
though we recognize that the emotional divide between the radical elements
in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are wide and deep. If the present
leaders of these three camps are incapable of overcoming their bigotry,
more mature leaders will have to be found.
For a self-proclaimed "compassionate conservative," such as
President Bush, it ought to be easy--in the spirit of the prophet Isaiah--to
urge upon Jews, Christian, and Muslims: "Come now, let us reason
together." Mr. Bush is unlikely to do that as long as his most
influential advisers believe that America ought to dictate to the world's
1.2 billion Muslims what their future will look like. If we respond
irrationally to the terrorists' challenges, then we, too, have descended
to their irrational level of operation.
America certainly has the military muscle to reshape and control the
Middle East. Since when, however, are imperialist adventures America's
historic mission? Have we not learned at long last that weapons of war
will never bring us peace? Genuine peace, a world without the plague
of war and terrorism, cannot develop as long as Islamic society and
the modern West do not overcome their alienation and confrontation and
achieve some kind of tolerant coexistence.
President Bush knows that people cannot long endure without a decent
regard for each other. He said so, however imperfect in his quaint elocution,
when he spoke in Des Moines on December 13, 1999: "There is a problem
with heart in America. One of the great frustrations of being governor
is I wish I knew the law to make people love one another, because I
would sign it."