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 Instead of 'Thank you' Is the US an evil Empire? January 10, 2003 The Iranian Islamic extremists have shown a bizarre propensity of supporting the strongman of the Arab world. Since last year Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein have emerged as the new idols of Islam, although they may be better presented as the twin nemeses of the Islamic world through their portrayal of Islam as a religion that allows callous murders, compounded deceit and waging undeclared wars against civilians. Nevertheless, in the minds of many imbued with the spirit of political Islam, these are the very heroes of Islam battling an oppressor who threatens to cast Islamic civilization to oblivion. The prevalent broad-spectrum anti-American logic in the Islamic world is based on the theory that the US will thrust Muslim allied nations aside when their usefulness has come to an end and then move on. It is generally assumed that, for some perverse reason, the only country America has absolute and unwavering allegiance is Israel and it's the country that has the least to offer. This lack of consistency in strategy on the part of the US vis-à-vis the Islamic world has definite bearing on the actions of present anti-US demonstrators. America's track record with regards to Muslim populations can be defined by the four crises it responded to during the '80s and '90s. In Afghanistan, against the invading Red Army, a country infamous for her reputation, where "God only comes to weep." The Gulf War liberated the Kuwaiti people from the yoke of Saddam, whilst American intervention in the Balkans saved Bosnian lives whilst ethnic Albanians were spared Serbian wrath in the neighboring Kosovo solely because of America's intervention. In every instance, the liberated were Muslim peoples! America undertook a disastrous military campaign in Somalia to save the latter's starving population, Muslims all. In Mogadishu, a battle that killed 18 American servicemen, the attack was primarily intended to capture the warlord's top lieutenants responsible for killing of 29 Muslim peacekeepers! American administrations have had to prove that they were not anti-Muslim; indeed it was explicitly stated that the operations in Bosnia were to placate an increasingly hostile Muslim world. Indeed Serbians seeking to avenge the humiliation inflicted by the Ottoman Empire and reclaim Kosovo were bent on a genocidal drive to expunge the last Muslim from their lands. To prevent this holocaust in Europe, America resorted to bombing an Orthodox Christian nation and thus ensured the survival of Islam in the Balkan region. Indeed, President Clinton continued to bomb Yugoslavia during the holy days of Eastern Orthodox Easter, nevertheless, halted the bombing of Iraq during Ramadan in a tribute to Islam. Christian Belgrade was razed to the ground for the preservation of 7 million Muslim lives yet there is no gratitude from Muslims for these altruistic gestures. In a unipolar global order, America has risen as the patron of oppressed Islamic populations and even now gears itself for the onerous task of liberating the Muslims of Iraq from their dictator. Muslim populations throughout the globe must acknowledge this fundamental truth. Pragmatism and geopolitical reality should be the order of the day, not vague ramblings against a superpower, whose remarkable partiality towards Muslim populations is routinely ignored. The Arab populace's street enmity towards American action in Iraq stems as much from the feelings of betrayal as it does from the Pan-Islamic sentiments that continue to linger on in the national consciousness. There are some who perceive United States as calculating and untrustworthy, a mixture of innocence abroad and Machiavellian superpower. Indeed it was believed that American's intervention in Afghanistan during the 80's was to only avenge the debacle of Vietnam and with its success they abandoned critical pivots. Nevertheless, America has redeemed itself by liberating the Afghan population from the Taliban. The liberation of the Afghan people from their tyrants, in this case Muslim theocrats, is yet another instance when Muslim peoples need foreign intervention to save them from themselves. The Islamic world has progressed through the milestones of the last century recoiling from failure to failure. The inherent inability of Muslim nations to discern the true victor of global conflicts has led to immense setbacks. In the First World War, the Ottoman Empire sided with Kaiser Germany leading to the dissolution of the Caliphate whilst Mufti Hussein, the spiritual leader of Palestinian people during the 40's, actively abetted Hitler in his mission to exterminate European Jewry. Failing to get to grips with geopolitical reality, rather, retreating to the escapist fantasies of "Western, Jewish conspiracies" against Muslims, have defined the Islamic response to the events of the modern age. Pan-Islamism is a variant of this recent phenomenon where the impulse to identify with Muslim leaders induces stultifying intellectual isolation and enmity towards the West. The Pan-Islamism strain afflicting Islamic world is reminiscent of the Khilafat Movement, when in the early 20th century, 18,000 sub-continental Muslims sold all their possessions and means of livelihood to depart British India for the Afghan frontier, only to be refused at the border by the Wali of Afghanistan. Shattered by the crumbling of the Ottoman Empire by Ataturk, revered as father of the Turkish nation, sub-continental Muslims failed to reconcile themselves with the demise of the Turkish Caliphate. The drive amongst Muslims to embrace modernity in Turkey was largely absent in their coreligionists in the subcontinent who, instead, mourned the loss of the last Islamic Empire. This impulse to demonstrate solidarity with the rest of the Islamic world was further manifested when thousands rally on Arab streets to support Saddam Hussein. Saddam, in his latest incarnation as the savior of the Muslim world, is a tyrant who may very well go down in history as the one cause for the loss of most Muslim lives. Indeed to idealize Saddam as an Islamic icon is folly when his actions share more with Stalin than Saladin. Even the ideological roots of Saddam's Ba'thist party is not Islamic, rather, it lies in a secular Arab nationalistic movement confounded by a Syrian Christian, Michael Aflaq. The Ba'th party has no solidarity with Islamic nations rather it solely propounds the unity of the Arab World.  Saddam's Islamic track record is nonexistent, save when it comes to
the decimation of Muslim populations. In Halabja, five thousand Sunni Kurds were
gassed because of their irredentist tendencies, whilst in his Anfal campaign, 50,000
were estimated to have lost their lives. Saddam is wholly responsible for the bloody
cleavage in the Islamic world, indeed his vicious attack on Iran polarized Islam's
Shia and Sunni sects.In what way could the mass annihilation of the children of Ahvaz, where Saddam launched his Scud missiles, or the destruction of the Shiraz Hospital for Children with an estimated loss of life to over 600, advance Islam? The disconcerting quietness of the Muslims worldwide, when this particular dictator spilt Muslim blood, is in stark contrast to the present, where Muslim extremists have taken it upon themselves to advocate the cause of this "Muslim Savior". Muslims must now rise from their conspiracy-induced stupor and realize that the blood-soaked regime of Saddam is not the true champion of Islam. Megalomaniac delusions of some of these demonstrators with their hot-wire urges for revenge against the US completely overlook the ground realities on which Islamic economies and welfare of its 1 billion is attached to the global systems. The Islamic world's inability to exist in isolation is completely beyond their grasp. It can be argued that all US actions in the last couple of decades were motivated by vested American interests and that they have been directly or indirectly instrumental in helping tyrannical governments.  It
has also been said that soon after the Halabja gas attack, Kurds were murdered, US$1
billion was given to the totalitarian regime and David Miller visited Iraq.But isn't protecting national interests what politics is all about? Political pragmatism for us should be at the forefront. Even oil-rich Arab states know that any attempt use oil to influence the United States would strain their own economies to breaking point. The politics of oil as a weapon has been discarded. They cannot fight militarily and in the absence of any realistic economic leverage, the best they can do is to reconcile their long-term interests with those of the United States. If oil-rich nations can overlook many injustices of the present system for the sake of their country, why can't Muslims, for the sake of their own good, perceive the forth coming dismissal of Saddam as a long overdue service to Iraqis? * Printer friendly Does this article have spelling or other mistakes? Tell me to fix it.
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