Leap Of Faith II

Friday, April 4, 2003
By: Tashbih Sayyed

Despite the fact that many military experts and political pundits assured the American public that the "shock and awe" strategy implemented in Iraq would guarantee a short and sweet war, Baghdad has not fallen. Instead, Iraqis who were expected to rise up against Saddam Hussein, instead are fighting the U.S. lead coalition, with more Arab jihadis coming in through the borders everyday. Such a strong negative reaction by Muslims against 'Operation Iraqi Freedom,' underlines the fact that the US has failed to take care of the basics before launching its military campaign. It did not try to take the people of Iraq, whose assistance was so essential, into confidence. They were not made to see the rationale behind 'Operation Iraqi Freedom."

Not only have the people of Iraq put up a strong resistance against the coalition, but other Muslim peoples of the region have also voiced their anger against the US led military campaign. The Globe and Mail, an English newspaper quoted a retired accountant of Cairo, Egypt, Ahmed Saleh, as saying "After this war, the majority of the Arab people will not like the United States." An Arabic-language newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat ran a cartoon that captured the prevailing Arab sentiments. It showed Uncle Sam shooting arrows at Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, but missing — hitting an Iraqi mother holding a baby. Suddenly U.S. President George W. Bush's agenda, "When the dictator has departed, [to have the Iraqi people]… set an example to all the Middle East of a vital and peaceful and self-governing nation," was in serious jeopardy/

My friend, Gary Fitleberg, compiled a report that portrays the present mind of the Muslim street. According to this compilation, hundreds of Palestinian Arab school children in the Gaza Strip hailed Saddam Hussein and protested against the American assault on Iraq. In the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun about 700 Palestinian Arabs, most of them schoolchildren, waved Iraqi flags and posters of Saddam Hussein and burned two U.S. flags after the attack in Iraq. Among the slogans they shouted were "Death to America, death to Bush," and "We will sacrifice our soul and our blood for Saddam."

Gary writes that the word of the U.S. attack came as the Egyptian faithful were responding to the first of five daily prayer calls. "God, you are almighty, you are capable of turning this [war] against" the Americans, said Bashir el-Afesh as he finished his prayers in Cairo. Kamal Abou Ayta, an Egyptian political activist who has organized anti-war protests in Cairo, called the attack "illegitimate." "I believe that American soldiers whenever they step on Iraqi soil, they will be defeated," Abou Ayta said in an interview. "I am sure of that."

In Iran, the nation's top diplomat called America's military attack on Iraq "unjustifiable and illegitimate," and elsewhere Arabs, angry at what they saw as an assault on fellow Arabs predicted the United States would ultimately be defeated. Mohammed Sadeq, a former Iranian Culture Ministry adviser allied with the country's reformist camp, accused the United States of attacking to take "control of Iraq's energy resources and to fan sectarian and ethnic conflicts in the region." One newspaper said, "After a week of exposure to the searing images of the war in Iraq, the mixed feelings that many Arabs have long felt toward the United States — admiring its entertainment, wealth and education, but suspicious of its motives and power — are turning into something more like undiluted anti-Americanism."

The attacks on New York and Washington forced the free world to realize that the scourge of Islamist terrorism directly results from an absence of democracy in the Muslim world. Moderate Muslims have always been trying, unsuccessfully, to make the US see the inherent danger in its policy of supporting the dictators in the Muslim world. The Tuesday terror on September 11, 2001, forced the US to accept the presence of this danger. US actions in the aftermath of the tragedy clearly acknowledged that as long as unrepresentative and dictatorial regimes are in power in the region, Islamist terrorism will continue.

Islamism, supported, encouraged and sponsored by despots in Muslim countries will not only continue to foster universal terrorism but will also jeopardize the security of the free world as a whole. Saddam Hussein's behavior and conduct in the field of international relations and in the domain of terrorism made it easy for everyone to conclude that he symbolized the problem. As a logical consequence of this conclusion every saner mind in the west agreed that to begin with, a regime change in Iraq was a must if any progress was to be made in the direction of peace, prosperity and stability of the region.

In my view, after concluding that Saddam Hussein has to be removed and Iraq has to be disarmed, a scientific and concerted effort should have been made to make the Muslim masses share the same concerns of the free world. An appeal could have been made to their faith based sense of honor and nationalism that Islamism is anti-Islam. The acts of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban do not represent Allah and the Quran.

A grassroots campaign, rather than from the unrepresentative top could have been launched to challenge the fundamentalist, extremist and radical philosophy of the Islamist from within the Muslim community. But it was not to be so. The U.S., once again, chose to disregard the power of the grass roots based network of the Islamists. And Saddam Hussein, unfortunately, was too clever to ignore that basic fact in Muslim society. He went, full throttle, in exploiting Muslim emotionalism.

Moreover, the U.S. continued to depend and trust the so-called pro-US rulers, who themselves hate pluralism and democracy, to convey the message of openness and freedom. The "pro-US" rulers do not command any moral authority within their states. The masses consider their rulers as agents of anti-Muslim powers. The real hand over the hearts and minds within Muslim societies is vested within the religious leaders who control the basic medium of communication within the community - the mosques, Islamic centers and madrasas. Therefore, the Muslim street, under the influence of religious leaders, has remained allergic to any pro-US message conveyed by their 'pro-US' governments.

This traditional and historical US dependence on dictators and anti people rulers in the Muslim world has alienated the Muslim masses from them. They have drawn closer to the anti-US elements, which normally represent the Islamists like, Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Such a disconnect has deprived Washington of the ability to feel, gauge and recognize the psychological, historical and religious nerve centers that are regularly provoked by Islamists to galvanize jihadi fervor in the Muslim masses. This distance has also prevented Washington from understanding Muslim psychology. Lack of proper understanding of Muslim sensibilities has led Washington to act in a manner that has alienated Muslims further.

There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein is a dictator and that the people of Iraq want to get rid of him. But Iraqis are also Muslims who are known for their faith-based ethnocentrism, religious nationalism, ego, pride and honor. They have been fed a heavy dose of anti-Semitism through a manipulated interpretation of not only their holy scriptures, but regional history as well. Rejection of Israel is the direct result of this built-in anti-Semitism. The majority of them have been brain washed into believing that there is a Judeo-Christian conspiracy to destroy Islam and the United States of America represents this Judeo-Christian agenda.

As a result, Saddam knew that to deflect the Iraqi peoples hatred for him, he had to present "Operation Iraqi Freedom" as a campaign against Islam. Only then would Iraqis resist the U.S. campaign to remove him from power. He only had to present the coalition's war as a war to empower Israel. Saddam used the mosques and Islamic centers to convince the Muslims that it is a war to colonize Muslim lands and their natural resources. Iraq's Foreign Minister, Naji Sabri, said in a live televised address, "Bush's designs to change the map of the Middle East are to the benefit of Israel and the greedy intentions of some companies that brought him and his aides to the presidency of the United States." Moreover, he said that the "conspiracy of the Americans and Zionists, that is against Muslims and Arabs, was behind the conflict. "They want to control oil and the destiny of the world, and to serve Israel, their terrorists plans, and to serve the leader of the terrorists, Sharon, in the occupied territories."

Using the right tools, Saddam Hussein succeeded in all of his goals. And now not only are Iraqis fighting for Saddam, but the entire Muslim world wants to fight for Saddam Hussein, whom they loathe. Saddam Hussein is no longer a dictator but has become a present day Salahdin Ayubbi. By standing with Saddam Hussein, Muslims are defending their honor, their dignity and their faith. And by fighting with Saddam, they hope to destroy Israel.