January 06, 2005
The Guys Who Are Undecided
James Taranto in his Bloggie Award-winning “Best of the Web” feature yesterday mocked liberal writer Anne Applebaum for her inference that supporting the torture of radical Muslims would turn moderates against us. Taranto assumes that moderates will always be for us, just as radicals always oppose us. However, both of them are operating from the fundamental misunderstanding that two monolithic, static groups comprise Arab Muslim society.
This misunderstanding has been fostered by the media and the government, unfortunately. The reality is a lot more complex. Arab Muslim society, as I have experienced and studied it, is a bell curve continuum. If you compare people from opposite ends of this continuum, they appear radically different, but the majority of the society is not polarized around those extremes. Rather, most Muslims fall in the middle. As polls in Iraq indicated recently, more Iraqis want a secular democracy than want a theocracy. However, most Iraqis intend to vote for a religious party*. There's no neat "Red-Blue Divide" along which we can identify our friends and enemies.
Furthermore, the whole continuum tends to move as a group. When the U.S. does anti-Arab things (like dissing Arafat), everybody's opinion of the U.S. goes down a notch. If we try to attack the right wing of that spectrum, we'll unwittingly attack the whole of it (in their perception) and move the entire spectrum a step to the right. All of a sudden there are more terrorists, more terrorist sympathizers, more people willing to keep quiet about terrorists, and fewer people willing to stand against terrorists. Correspondingly, a move perceived as being pro-Arab shifts the spectrum to the left, with fewer terrorists, fewer terrorist sympathizers, and more people willing to work with Americans.
What the U.S. needs to do is find things it can do to win over the Arab populace without abandoning our principles or safety. Showing that we are serious about our rhetoric is vital. How well we protect and how we react to the Palestinian elections on January 9th is vital. Will we respect their choice of a leader? Do we want democracy, or do we just want pliable leaders? After decades of watching state-controlled television, Arabs are pretty cynical news consumers. They won't swallow our Wilsonian pablum if we don't show a willingness to put democracy ahead of our own power.
The popular wisdom in the Arab world holds - quite seriously - that the U.S. wants to create an empire or sphere of influence for herself and Israel from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. If we are slow about pulling our soldiers out of Iraq when they are no longer needed there, or if we or Israel invade Lebanon or Syria, then a large portion of the Arab bell curve will see the evidence and be forced to believe the conspiracy theorists. "Yabba ya!" they'll exclaim, "America really is out to conquer the Arab world. I guess they weren't serious about that whole democracy thing. Anyway, who wants a democracy if it's so belligerent? Ma sha' Allah, it's time to join the resistance."
Casey Stengel once said that the key to managing a baseball team is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided. George Bush needs to realize that the key to managing the Middle East is to keep Paul Wolfowitz away from the guys who are undecided.
* Source: Knight Ridder article, Dec. 22
Posted by Chops at January 6, 2005 03:17 PMGreat article - very insightful. Thanks.
Posted by: Joseph Briggs at January 6, 2005 04:39 PMChops, very perceptive and sophisticated argument. And I agree, perception is our real enemy in the war against terrorists who would attack us. We will never eliminate enemies of America, but, addressing perception as you so adroitly addressed, will keep their numbers small and deny them unrestrained access to new recruits.
Unfortunately, many who read “perception is the key” will interpret that to mean information management by means of lies and spin and cover-up. That is the quickest and shortest route to losing the perception war. We live in the information age, and any who believes they can fool all the people all of the time, is going prove to be the fool themselves. We must act in a manner that addresses the perception war, not just talk it.
Posted by: David R. Remer at January 6, 2005 04:54 PMDavid, thanks for the comment (and I get a kick out of how we can fisk each other in one thread and amiably agree in another). I wouldn’t say ‘perception is the key’, precisely because of the problems you outlined. Starting a “Radio Free Iraq” or whatever they call it is a nice touch, but it’s peanuts compared to the real issues.
Perception itself is not key as much as understanding the difference in perceptions and (this was the goal of my piece) bringing our own perceptions more in line with reality. As long as we think that the Arab world has a Red/Blue-esque divide similar to our society’s, we will come up with poor policies. If our leaders realize we’re dealing with a much more unified, seemless body politic, it will force them to reconsider a lot of the actions taken.
Posted by: Chops at January 6, 2005 05:41 PMExcellent article, Chops! I think your take on the Palestinian elections is right on.
Unfortunately, by couching it in terms of “an opportunity for peace”, Bush is definitely making it sound like US involvement is based on electing someone pliable - as if, just as with Arafat, we won’t deal with anyone who isn’t willing to be a Zionist/Crusader lapdog.
It makes it hard for any Palestinian leader who really does want to seriously negotiate. They have to balance concessions with domestic credibility, and we should be helping by keeping official remarks discreet.
