March 6, 2002

TERRORISM: 1, HEARTS AND MINDS: 0

By Tom Plate

U.S. shows tactical brilliance in war on terrorism, but short of victory in strategic world approval

(C) 2002 Asia Pacific Media Network

LOS ANGELES --- Tactics and strategy are far from the same thing. The former gets one through the day; the latter gets one through life.

Tactically, the United States has been brilliant in the battle against Al Qaeda. As in the Persian Gulf War, American technology and training have been awesome. No one in the world can question this country's capability or resolve. Any force that dares to strike America will receive punishing retaliation. That has been established beyond doubt.

So have President George W. Bush's leadership skills. His articulation of the battle against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 massacre has been outstanding. His top advisors have been impressive as well.

But winning battles does not guarantee victory in a larger war. Three decades ago, America's military was fearsome in Vietnam, but in the end the war was lost. That scenario could be replayed anew if America's overall strategy against terrorism proves to be as flawed as it was against the Vietnamese Communists.

Such a nightmare possibility arises from the results of a new international Gallup Poll. It would appear that the United States, for all its bravery and military prowess, is losing the war, badly, for the hearts and minds of the Islamic people.

The widely respected opinion-gauging organization polled residents in nine Muslim countries, including Indonesia, a pivotal nation-state in Southeast Asia with the world's largest Muslim population, and Pakistan, at the moment a tactical ally of America though unsteady as it goes.

Gallup's findings are disturbing. By a two-to-one margin, Muslims expressed very negative views of the United States and its president. Large Muslim majorities regard the American military campaign in Afghanistan as "morally unjustifiable." Sixty-one percent said they did not believe Arabs were the culprits of the Sept. 11 attacks. Worse yet, most said the United States is anti-Muslim.

That's absurd, of course. Americans, by and large, are accepting of almost all faiths. What is true, though, is the broad Muslim consensus, evident in this poll, that U.S. values are materialistic and secular. Respondents expressed the fear that their cultures faced ethical erosion simply by virtue of contact with Americans.

Taken altogether, this poll should trigger alarms in the corridors of the Pentagon, the White House, the State Department and, especially, Congress. The last needs to convene a major hearing on the war's effect on Muslim opinion. And the Bush administration needs to subject its anti-terror campaign to a strategic rethink, with serious input from still-friendly Muslim leaders.

For what will it gain the United States if in smashing terror cells all around the globe (largely in Muslim societies), it destroys its reputation in the entire Islamic world?

Such a turn in world opinion certainly won't help ease the regional isolation of Israel, whose anti-Palestinian campaign accounts for the widespread Muslim belief that America is biased against the Palestinians. Nor will it do anything but create discomfort, if not outright instability, for moderate Arab and Muslim regimes that prefer good relations with the United States, but not at the expense of roiling internal instability.

However, the American problem in the Muslim world is more image than reality. The reality is that the United States is not anti-Muslim. But respondents were overwhelmingly "resentful" of the United States, which they termed "ruthless and arrogant." This means there is little time to lose. America must reposition itself strategically and stop shooting itself in the foot with shortsighted high-tech military spasms, whether in the Philippines or elsewhere.

An image-recovery campaign is desperately needed. The Bush administration, now mopping up in Afghanistan, must internationalize the anti-terror effort by placing all future major decisions before the U.N. Security Council for approval. Washington needs to organize an immediate conference, perhaps in Kuala Lumpur, of Islamic foreign and defense ministers -- attended by Secretary of State Colin Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld -- to chart a consensus approach to the campaign and to ask for advice on how to better present the American case to the Islamic world.

Comparable suggestions have been tendered by the Philippines' President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, quietly and politely, and by Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, not so quietly or politely. At a private meeting with mainly American journalists last month, the outspoken Mahathir said that the way things were going, soon no American tourist would be safe in a Muslim country. That was not a threat but a warning. For, by the standards of today's Muslim world, Mahathir is comparatively pro-American. It is getting that bad.

Previous Columns:

Needed: A New U.S. Self-Containment Policy (February 27, 2002)

A Modest Appraisal of Asia by Bush's National Security Advisor (February 20, 2002)

True Crusaders Never Run Out of Moral Gas (February 20, 2002)

The Bush Administration Lays Out the Three 'Cs' of its New China Policy (February 13, 2002)

The Canary in the Asian Coal Mine (January 30, 2002)

From World Economic Forum, NYC 2002:

Is America On An Ego Trip? (February 8, 2002)

The Crash of Civilizations, As Heard From Ground Zero (February 7, 2002)

The Taliban of Money Market Capitalism (February 6, 2002)

(C) 2002 Asia Pacific Media Network