Foreign Affairs; The Big Terrible, by Thomas L Friedman
This is a menu of the topics on this page (click on any):
I relate this not to suggest that my friends around the Middle East reflect
all public opinion out here. They do not. One need only visit some of the most
popular Arabic Web sites and chat rooms to see that public opinion in the Arab
world is split about 50-50 -- between those appalled by the bombing and those
applauding it. The harshest e-mails, Arab techies tell me, come from Islamists
in Saudi Arabia and the gulf, home to some of the hijackers.
No, I relate this simply to say that America still has many admirers in this
part of the world. For all that Middle Easterners get enraged with America, many
others value it, envy it and want their kids there. They envy the sense of
ownership that Americans have over their own government, they envy its naĀve
optimism, its celebration of individual freedom and its abiding faith that the
past won't always bury the future. For a brief, terrifying moment last week
people out here got a glimpse of what the world could be like without America,
and many did not like it. America is not something external to them; people
carry around pieces of it in ways often not articulated.
Why does all this matter? Because we need the help of the moderate Arab
states to fight this war. And for now, most of these Arab leaders are ready to
cooperate with us -- because enough of their publics are tilted our way. But the
moderate Arab leaders are praying that the U.S. will proceed carefully and
surgically, because they know that public opinion here, even after all the
American deaths, is by no means solidly pro-American.
On Sunday I interviewed Jordan's King Abdullah, one of America's real
friends. He had three wise messages: We can win if you Americans don't forget
who you are, if you don't forget who your friends are and if we work together.
''The terrorists are trying to break down the fabric of the U.S.,'' said the
Jordanian monarch. ''They want to break down what America stands for. The
terrorists actually want to provoke attacks on Arabs or Muslims in the U.S.,
because if the American communities start going after each other, if we see
America fragment, then you destroy that special thing that America stands for.
That's what the terrorists want -- they want to be able to turn to your friends
here and say, 'Look, this is all a myth.'
''That is why you have to be very careful when you respond -- make sure you
respond in a way that punishes the real perpetrators, that brings justice, not
revenge, because otherwise you will be going against your own ideals, and that
is what the terrorists want most.''
At the same time, U.S. strategy can't just be about punishing the bad guys.
It also has to be about helping the good guys. Jordan is a country with a decent
government and an economy that -- despite the Intifada -- grew 3.9 percent last
year, thanks largely to a free-market approach, with an emphasis on software,
technology and textile development that is drawing U.S. investors. That's a lot
of jobs. (Jordan is also the first Arab country to sign a free trade agreement
with the U.S., but ratification has been foolishly held up by the Senate.) In
short, Jordan is becoming a good Arab model for how to do things right. We have
a fundamental interest in this model succeeding, for all its neighbors to see.
Terrorists thrive in failing, stagnant, weak states with illegitimate regimes --
not countries on the rise.
Which brings up the king's last point: ''The bad guys work together, but we
don't. The terrorist groups are a global organization. They know how to
cooperate and stay focused on their military objectives. We have not. Some
people didn't want to share intelligence. [Some] said, Islamic terrorism is not
my problem, and looked the other way. We can defeat them, but only if we learn
to cooperate globally as effectively as they do.''
Page Top