Washington, D.C. Six
years into the war on Al Qaeda and four years into the invasion of
Iraq, neither Republican nor Democratic leaders seem to know how
to end America's costly involvement all over the Middle East. There
is no end in sight of the terrorist resistance in both Iraq and Afghanistan,
regardless of whether the President pours more manpower and money
into the battle against the insurgents or whether Congress sets deadlines
for the withdrawal of America's occupation troops.
Few of our leaders seem willing to concede the crucial fact that all
Muslim countries yearn to be free from foreign occupation and domination.
For as long as 400 years, Muslim societies chafed under Turkish, British,
French, Italian, Dutch, and Russian colonial rule. Finally, in the
second half of the 20th century, almost all Muslim societies saw their
colonial overlords leave and allow them the national independence that
Turkish Muslims and European Christians had denied them for so long.
Except for the occupation of the Philippines, which wisely was terminated
in 1946, the United States remained the only major power that did not
attempt to colonize Muslim societies in Asia and Africa. As soon, however,
as the U.S. and the Soviet Union stumbled into a cold war over ideological
and military dominance worldwide, both powers sought to gain influence
and control in the Muslim societies.
The almost unconditional American support of Israel's expansive ambitions
against its Muslim neighbors, moreover, made the U.S. a dominant and
controversial player in the Middle East. Since the founding of Israel
60 years ago, Americans spent hundreds of billions of dollars on strengthening
Israel and mollifying its neighbors but did not succeed in ending Israel's
oppressive occupation of the Palestinian territories and negotiating
an Israeli-Palestinian and an Israeli-Syrian peace settlement.
Ironically, since the end of the Cold War the build-up of U.S. military forces
in the Middle East did not decrease but grew steadily into a confrontation with
radical Islam, even before the Al Qaeda attack on New York City and Washington,
D.C. Today the U.S. Central Command exerts unmatched military domination over
the vast territories between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean while
U.S. taxpayers pay the cost for hundreds of bases large and small.
Contrary to what many Americans assume, most Muslims do not hate Americans. It
is our policies in the Middle East that have been arousing so much anger and
opposition.
James Zombie, the president of the Arab-American Institute, recently told Congress: “The
situation of the Palestinians, US actions and policies in Iraq,
America’s perceived complicity in last year’s war in Lebanon, Abu
Grab, Guantanamo Bay, secret prisons, and last year’s Dubai Ports World
debacle have taken and continue to take a toll on America’s standing” in
the Arab world. This week, 144 Iraqi lawmakers--mare than half of parliament--signed
a legislative petition calling on the U.S. to set a time table for withdrawal.
The neoconservative insistence on imposing American values and Israel’s
dictates on Islamic societies is in fact the root cause of the hostility and
the terrorism we are now facing from radical Muslim cells. To counteract the
popular appeal of the anti-American undercurrents, we urgently need to insist
on a fair peace settlement between Israelis and Arabs and stop imposing our values
and institutions upon Muslim societies.
Those who want U.S. military control over the Middle East continue for the indefinite
future forget how much Americans themselves once yearned to be free from British
occupation. Those who ask for a military victory over the terrorist plague fail
to recognize that the hidden plotters cannot be made to surrender but can only
be snuffed out by depriving them of their sources of moral and material support.
Sacrificing American lives and funds 6,000 miles from home is not in our national
interest, particularly when most of the people we are claiming to help neither
appreciate nor want our interference in their affairs.