The last 10%
My uninformed opinion.
It has been widely reported that Arab opinion of the U.S. has never been lower than it is now. Some 90% of Arabs view the U.S. in an unfavorable light.
So, how do we lose the remaining 10%? I would say that we should just stay the course. With Bush endorsing Sharon's latest attempt at disrupting any hope of peace and dignity for Palestinians, and the likely resumption of the siege of Fallujah and a new assault on Najaf, most of the 'errant' should fall into line.
Saudi Prince Bandar's appearance on Meet The Press will only serve to acknowledge the Arab street's view that the corrupt, repressive Saudi government is dealing with "The Great Satan" (the transcript should be out shortly)
So, what does this mean? I'll speculate a bit. Let's say that 1% of the Arab population of 200 million or so becomes radicalized due to current events. That gives us 2 million radicalized Arabs.
That is a huge problem.
It seems likely that the 1.1 billion members of Islam could - and most likely will - see current events as a war against their way of life. I don't see anything positive occurring here.
This could magnify the issue roughly five-fold. Not good.
"Why do they hate us?" yup. It's because of our freedoms. Sure it is. I like it when my leadership attempts to take a complex issue with myriad and changing elements and distill it to a phrase a 7-year old wouldn't buy.
Bush's problem is that he believes that his view is the correct one. He may be a person of convictions(drunk driving aside), but when your held beliefs are demonstrably wrong - see casus belli for the Iraq war - that makes you a huge liability. Far from keeping America safe from the widely exaggerated threat of international terrorism, Bush's error ridden thinking process is likely to spawn a new, much more dangerous style of threats.
These new threats may approach the level of those that are now considered implausible - or at least highly unlikely - by the intelligence community.
The Iraq war, our inability to liquidate bin Laden, and our inability to make any progress in the Israeli/Palestinian peace process will likely breed more of what we claim to be for extinguishing - international terrorism.
Anything for four more years in the White House. Et tu, George?
UPDATE: MTP Transcript
It has been widely reported that Arab opinion of the U.S. has never been lower than it is now. Some 90% of Arabs view the U.S. in an unfavorable light.
So, how do we lose the remaining 10%? I would say that we should just stay the course. With Bush endorsing Sharon's latest attempt at disrupting any hope of peace and dignity for Palestinians, and the likely resumption of the siege of Fallujah and a new assault on Najaf, most of the 'errant' should fall into line.
Saudi Prince Bandar's appearance on Meet The Press will only serve to acknowledge the Arab street's view that the corrupt, repressive Saudi government is dealing with "The Great Satan" (the transcript should be out shortly)
So, what does this mean? I'll speculate a bit. Let's say that 1% of the Arab population of 200 million or so becomes radicalized due to current events. That gives us 2 million radicalized Arabs.
That is a huge problem.
It seems likely that the 1.1 billion members of Islam could - and most likely will - see current events as a war against their way of life. I don't see anything positive occurring here.
This could magnify the issue roughly five-fold. Not good.
"Why do they hate us?" yup. It's because of our freedoms. Sure it is. I like it when my leadership attempts to take a complex issue with myriad and changing elements and distill it to a phrase a 7-year old wouldn't buy.
Bush's problem is that he believes that his view is the correct one. He may be a person of convictions(drunk driving aside), but when your held beliefs are demonstrably wrong - see casus belli for the Iraq war - that makes you a huge liability. Far from keeping America safe from the widely exaggerated threat of international terrorism, Bush's error ridden thinking process is likely to spawn a new, much more dangerous style of threats.
These new threats may approach the level of those that are now considered implausible - or at least highly unlikely - by the intelligence community.
The Iraq war, our inability to liquidate bin Laden, and our inability to make any progress in the Israeli/Palestinian peace process will likely breed more of what we claim to be for extinguishing - international terrorism.
Anything for four more years in the White House. Et tu, George?
UPDATE: MTP Transcript
No comments :
Post a Comment