the thing that increased terrorism the most was invading Iraq...
9/11, USS Cole, Kenyan/Tanzanian Embassies?
Also, while the war in Iraq has not made the US popular in the region, it has given the people of the Middle East a very good look at the practice of terrorism. Surveys show that groups like Al Qaeda have suffered an even greater loss of esteem than the US has:
We give money to many oppressive governments in the Middle East.
This was the theme of GWB's second inaugural address. Thanks to him, Iraq's government is now the most liberal in the region. The idea was to create pressure for change in neighboring countries like Syria and especially Iran. That nobody was ecstatic about the Stalinesque Hussein regime's ouster and subsequent replacement with a constitutional democracy is a bright sign that "oppression" is a lot more complicated than the victim-villain narrative that predominates in the media and public discourse.
Did I mention that Israel is one of the world's most open societies if you ignore all the stuff they do to the Palestinians?
The point is that this issue is full of contradictions. But it's hard to see how the oppression of the Middle East's huddled masses would elicit murderous, self-immolating rage from the son of a Nigerian bank chairman living at a tony London boarding school (Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab), or an Egyptian studying architecture at a German university (Mohammed Atta).
We are seen in the Middle East as bullies that only care about oil. This is grist for the mill of terrorism, where we setup ourselves as an easy target.
Superpowers are not nice. But they are even less popular than they are nice. They get blamed for all the good they could do but don't, doubly blamed for their screwups, triply blamed for their vices. And when they do something right, nobody pays attention:
So I absolutely agree that the US has a big PR problem in the Middle East that to some extent is structural and can't be gotten rid of. But that doesn't really tell us much. Any project undertaken by an actor as big as the US is going to be a mixed bag. Because of the PR problem, people will see the bad and not the good, making the US less popular and giving it more of a PR problem.
I think people stop thinking about problems like terrorism too early. They quit in a funny way though. Rather than just declaring the problem impossible, people tend to settle on some really unrealistic solution that will never fly in the real world, and then complain that it isn't happening.
So for example, people go on about how the US should consume less oil (which would add major unemployment to the region's problems), stop backing Israel (which would destroy trust of other allies, threaten a high-tech trading partner, free up Syria and Hezbollah, and piss off a chunk of the Florida electorate), or stop being a superpower (Riiight).
9/11, USS Cole, Kenyan/Tanzanian Embassies?
Also, while the war in Iraq has not made the US popular in the region, it has given the people of the Middle East a very good look at the practice of terrorism. Surveys show that groups like Al Qaeda have suffered an even greater loss of esteem than the US has:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/12/17/saudi.poll/
We give money to many oppressive governments in the Middle East.
This was the theme of GWB's second inaugural address. Thanks to him, Iraq's government is now the most liberal in the region. The idea was to create pressure for change in neighboring countries like Syria and especially Iran. That nobody was ecstatic about the Stalinesque Hussein regime's ouster and subsequent replacement with a constitutional democracy is a bright sign that "oppression" is a lot more complicated than the victim-villain narrative that predominates in the media and public discourse.
Did I mention that Israel is one of the world's most open societies if you ignore all the stuff they do to the Palestinians?
The point is that this issue is full of contradictions. But it's hard to see how the oppression of the Middle East's huddled masses would elicit murderous, self-immolating rage from the son of a Nigerian bank chairman living at a tony London boarding school (Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab), or an Egyptian studying architecture at a German university (Mohammed Atta).
We are seen in the Middle East as bullies that only care about oil. This is grist for the mill of terrorism, where we setup ourselves as an easy target.
Superpowers are not nice. But they are even less popular than they are nice. They get blamed for all the good they could do but don't, doubly blamed for their screwups, triply blamed for their vices. And when they do something right, nobody pays attention:
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2009/1211/Iraq-oi...
So I absolutely agree that the US has a big PR problem in the Middle East that to some extent is structural and can't be gotten rid of. But that doesn't really tell us much. Any project undertaken by an actor as big as the US is going to be a mixed bag. Because of the PR problem, people will see the bad and not the good, making the US less popular and giving it more of a PR problem.
I think people stop thinking about problems like terrorism too early. They quit in a funny way though. Rather than just declaring the problem impossible, people tend to settle on some really unrealistic solution that will never fly in the real world, and then complain that it isn't happening.
So for example, people go on about how the US should consume less oil (which would add major unemployment to the region's problems), stop backing Israel (which would destroy trust of other allies, threaten a high-tech trading partner, free up Syria and Hezbollah, and piss off a chunk of the Florida electorate), or stop being a superpower (Riiight).
There have to be better solutions, though.