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CIAO DATE: 09/03
Foreign Policy
From Victory to Success: An FP-Carnegie Special Report
Islam's Weakened Moderates
Husain Haqqani*
While optimists could still be proved correct and the removal of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could strengthen moderating elements in the Islamic world, early trends indicate that the war has wounded the cause of moderation. During the war, images of destruction of the historic capital of Islam’s caliphs, Baghdad, were beamed into Muslim homes by a vibrant and increasingly independent Arab media. For hours on end, viewers saw the suffering of their fellow Muslims pounded by an all-powerful United States. The looting that followed was seen as the result of the occupying army’s disregard for the security of the Iraqi people. The burning of the Iraqi Religious Affairs Ministry, which housed the oldest extant copies of the Muslim holy book, the Koran, strengthened the argument of anti-American clerics that the United States does not respect Muslim concerns. Almost nobody in the Muslim world noted that the looters were fellow Muslim Iraqis and not American or British soldiers.
The war in Iraq has definitely increased the number of radical Muslims believing in the inevitability of a clash of civilizations and the need to stand up and be counted for their religious fellowship. (See sidebar, “The Ripple Effect.”)Radical Islamists have started building the argument that the United States offers nothing by way of ethical ideas and has become arrogant as a result of its military dominance. This argument finds even greater resonance in the context of the Iraq war. What is new following the collapse of Iraq’s secular Arab nationalist regime is a process of cooperation and convergence between radical Islamists and secular nationalists in the Middle East. Traditionally, secular Arab nationalism viewed radical Islam, with its emphasis on pan-Islamism, as an ideological rival. But the Iraq war has muted that rivalry and, in the process, has accentuated the polarization between a Muslim “us” and a Western “them.”
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The convergence of secular and fundamentalist Muslim radicals could provide new sanctuaries to radical Islamists while creating operational links between ideologically opposed terrorist groups. It could also pave the way for admission of secular enemies of the United States into groups that operate through their network of mosques and seminaries. More secular recruits would enable radical Islamist networks to overcome their relative lack of knowledge of Western societies, strengthening their operational capabilities.
U.S. promises of building an Iraqi democracy and making a new beginning in the Middle East have not been taken seriously by an overwhelming majority in the Arab Islamic world. In polls in several Arab countries, a majority of respondents now say they are unlikely to change their view of the United States, even if it helps to create a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Few people in the Muslim world liked Saddam. But the Muslim world saw the war largely as an effort to occupy Iraq, not one to liberate it.
Muslim disappointment and anger toward the U.S. government has been growing for some time, not least due to perceptions that the United States is one-sided in its supposedly mediating role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The problem is getting worse. Televised images of blindfolded prisoners in chains on Guantánamo and post–September 11 violations of civil liberties of ordinary Muslims in the United States have contributed to Muslim anti-Americanism. Rightly or wrongly, many Muslims feel that the United States manipulated and falsified evidence and arguments to go to war against Iraq but would have deemed a Muslim state a dangerous rogue if it did the same thing. In Muslim eyes, it is as if Washington is stooping to the same level as its declared enemies.
None of these negative developments may be significant in the long run if Iraqi reconstruction works out according to plan, a workable deal materializes between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and no new wars are fought to root out radical Islamic terrorists. As optimists note, anti-Americanism has spiked and fallen before in the Muslim world. Some U.S. neoconservatives, in particular, insist that the Arab-Islamic world has never been receptive to Western idealism, but fears and respects force. If this assertion is true, the decisive military victory in Iraq will soon quash agitation in the Muslim Street.
But an empire built on force and without support or admiration of its subjects remains vulnerable to the kind of threat represented by terrorist movements. The American public has traditionally shown little appetite for empire or for protracted conflict. Moreover, Israel’s experience in the West Bank and Gaza, and Russia’s in Chechnya, disproves the theory that overwhelming force can temper the fervor of radical Muslims.
For obvious reasons, the United States wants to bolster popular Muslim moderates and marginalize radicals. And there is a long tradition of Muslim leaders looking up to the West. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, told a peasant who asked him what westernization meant: “It means being a better human being.” Pakistan’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, cited the Englishman’s sense of justice and fair play as the value that binds Muslims with Westerners and sought to emulate U.S. conduct toward Canada in his country’s foreign policy. Even the religiously conservative founder of Saudi Arabia, King Abdel Aziz, chose to ally himself with the United States because he found God-fearing Americans better than godless communists.
But finding today’s Ataturks or Jinnahs is not so easy. And moderates who appeal to the West may fail to win enough hearts and minds at home. Until now the United States has defined Muslim leaders furthering U.S. foreign policy objectives as “moderates.” It should now widen that definition to include those able to win democratic support at home by focusing on their people’s problems.
The Ripple Effect: Turkey, Pakistan, and Indonesia
The war in Iraq was intended, partly, to reshape the Arab world. But three non-Arab Muslim countries could be most affected by the success or failure of U.S.-led reconstruction efforts in Iraq.
Turkey: An overwhelming 90 percent of Turks opposed the Iraq war. Islamic solidarity was one reason. But Turkey was particularly alarmed by the prospect that Iraq’s disintegration would lead to demands by its own Kurdish population for an independent or autonomous Kurdistan. The slightest sign of Kurdish autonomy or independence could provoke Turkish military action.
Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) will also have to watch for a resurgence of Islamic sentiment within its own rank and file. Although the party has Islamic roots, it has repeatedly affirmed its commitment to Turkey’s secular constitution and to the alliance with the United States. A perceived U.S. failure in rebuilding Iraq, or Islamist-led unrest in Baghdad, could put Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan under pressure to revert to a more Islamist position. That, in turn, could provoke the avowedly secular Turkish military to act against the AKP government. Turkey’s support for the United States will also depend on U.S. economic assistance and Washington’s ability to influence the European Union in hastening Turkey’s pending membership.
Pakistan: The alliance of Islamic parties, Muttahida Majlis Amal (MMA), which made significant gains in the parliamentary elections of October 2002, gathered more support as a result of the war, which was seen as an anti-Muslim crusade. The MMA is likely to continue anti-U.S. agitation. Its government in the Northwest Frontier Province, adjoining Afghanistan, is already allowing greater Taliban activity against the government of President Hamid Karzai, undermining U.S. efforts to stabilize Afghanistan.
In the short term, Islamist pressure on the brittle regime of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf could increase if violence in the Middle East (including in Iraq) were to rise. Confronted by such pressure in the past, Musharraf would have tried to increase benefits from the United States by helping pursue elements of al Qaeda, while pacifying Islamists by allowing militant groups to organize and operate against India in Kashmir. Now, the proffered resumption of Indo-Pak dialogue limits the anti-Indian option because terrorism traced to Pakistan would badly damage Musharraf’s international standing, including with Washington.
The successful transformation of Iraq into a democracy could energize Pakistan’s democratic opposition, which might decide to challenge Musharraf. This reaction would set in motion a destabilizing chain of events upsetting U.S. policy in the region, which now revolves around support for Musharraf.
Indonesia: Pan-Islamic sentiment, fueled by the war in Iraq, is at an all-time high in the world’s most populous Muslim country. With an election due in 2004, this sentiment could put more Islamists in office, though an Islamist president is unlikely. Indonesia’s Muslim moderates have been at pains to distance themselves from extremist groups since the Bali bombings in October 2002. But the need to secure Muslim votes could lead even moderate Islamic leaders to resort to anti-American rhetoric during the election campaign. That kind of political environment could help recruitment for terrorist groups such as Jemaah Islamiyah and Laskar Jihad, and might weaken the government’s resolve in clamping down on them.
Notes
Note *: Husain Haqqani, a former diplomat and advisor to Pakistani prime ministers, is a journalist and visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment. Back