The cause of Governor Taseer’s murder was the blasphemy laws of Pakistan that are being invoked to raise the level of tensions by accusing non-Muslims of insulting the religion or the Prophet of Islam, and then not even having an unbiased inquiry into the accusation.  He was a critic of it and was a strong voice about repealing them.  According to reports, there is a widespread support for such laws inside Pakistan.  As an example of the popularity of the blasphemy laws in Pakistan, consider this.  More than 500 scholars of the Jamaat Ihle-Sunnat, a relatively moderate Islamist group, “have advised Muslims not to offer the funeral prayers of Governor Punjab Salman Taseer nor try to lead the prayers.”  They also advised people against “expression of grief or sympathy on the death of the governor, as those who support blasphemy of the Prophet are themselves indulging in blasphemy.” The environment of fear is intensifying, and religious fanatics are having a field day in defaming a religion one of whose chief tenets is tolerance.

The murder of a high ranking official by his supposedly elite guard also points to the fact that Pakistan’s security forces are being regularly contaminated by the inflamed rhetoric of those who propagate apocryphal stories of “defamation” of Islam and stories about how Islam is under constant “threat.”  The only and mounting reality is that the chief threat to Islam is coming from those who are spreading such stories nonsensical stories, who are accusing minorities of defaming Islam, and who are murdering those who are asking them to tone down their insane rhetoric.

What most people (especially those who are at the helm of the government in Washington) fail to understand is that the civilian government of Pakistan is too weak to stand up to the rising tide of extremism.  Fanatics anywhere do not have to have large number of supporters.  Even their small gatherings are so voluble and so dedicated to their cause at a given time and at a given place that they tend to create simultaneous a movement and an environment of terror.  That movement, if not countered by the law enforcement forces, tends to gather momentum and expands.  It seems that most—if not every—official in Pakistan is getting scared in that environment of terror, getting scared of being accused of as an “agent of America” if he/she criticizes the irrational ululations of the forces of extremism.  The country is full of stories of conspiracies: about America, about India, and about the “secret” plans of taking away Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, and, above all, about conspiracies regarding Islam.

What is happening to Pakistan, whose religious enlightenment—not of the imaginary type promoted by General Pervez Musharraf, but a genuine one was a living force at one time? 

The origin of the malignancy of extremism go back to Zulfiqar Ali—father of Benazir Bhutto—who started appeasing Islamic parties in the early 1970ss to prove his own commitment to Islam.  However, Bhutto was too much of a secularist and too hard a whisky drinker to fool anyone.  Then came Zia ul-Haq, the Islamist General, who unabashedly used Islam to stay in power.  In Zia’s regime those contentious blasphemy laws were originally promulgated.

The post-9/11 environment created a profound siege mentality inside Pakistan.  George W. Bush’s warnings to Pakistan—that either you are with us or you are with the terrorists—offended the dignity of Pakistan.  The global perspective that Islam was under attack by the world’s lone superpower put everyone on the offensive in Pakistan.  Islamists and other religious extremists thrived under such a charged environment.  No Pakistani official dared to challenge them fearing the dreaded charge of being an agent of America.  While Usama Bin Laden and his ilk was envisioned as the enemy of the civilized world in the West.  Inside Pakistan, Ben Laden’s infamous phrase of about the “crusade by the Christians and Zionists against Islam” was emerged as the new enemy.  And that perception, over time, transformed itself into a siege mentality.

General Musharraf played a crucial role in that transformation, once again, to extend the term of his rule.  He made George Bush believe that he was the last and real promise against the takeover by the Islamist extremists, while at the same time coalescing, conniving with, and appeasing the Islamists inside Pakistan to stay in power. 

Considering how “superb” America’s intelligence agencies are in their “just in time” analyses and producing “agile intelligence,” Musharraf fooled Bush for a long time.  In the meantime, religious extremists continued to grow.  The world only knows about the infamous Deobandi Madrasas (religious schools) of Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier that are spreading the ideology of militancy.  However, the entire country is being contaminated by the Deobandi-Wahhabi rhetoric of religious fanaticism, obscurantism, and atavism. 

Under such an environment, the most crucial question is how untainted the security forces of Pakistan are these days?  Even General Ashfaq Kayani cannot answer that question with certainty.  Just look at the ISI and its own so-called “rogue elements” that are reported to be sympathizing with the Taliban of Afghanistan.  Who can stay with any amount of confidence how much infiltration has been made in the Pakistani Army by the Taliban of Afghanistan?  These are the questions that the Pakistani military’s high command must find answers to earnestly and most urgently.  They do not need to be on the defensive in answering these questions to the Americans.  After all, those questions are about the long-term stability of Pakistan.  The recipe of Pakistan continued existence as a nation-state rests in promoting Islamic moderation, which is the real face of Islam.

President Barack Obama decided to show his “outrage,” since some so-called pundits were upset that he was not showing the kind of passion that George W. Bush had shown after the 9/11 attacks. But, Bush’s record in his so-called “war on terrorism” has been a miserable failure. During his regime, the United States became an occupier of two Muslim countries. That might be one reason why the lone superpower under Obama is facing such an uphill battle in dealing with “violent extremism.” If Obama were to follow Bush’s example, then the United States is likely to face future quagmires and inertias.

Another dim-witted statement that was uttered by one of the “pundits” is when he wondered out loud why Muslims are not condemning what the young Nigerian tried to do. Statements of that nature imply that all Muslims, until every one of them yells at the top of his/her lungs condemning such action over and over again, are condoning terrorism. At no time in the history of human kind was such a reckless notion deemed worthy of air time.

What happened to America’s dealing with terrorism is that, under a new president, another country (Afghanistan) became the focus of it, as if by “winning” in that country the current administration would defeat terrorism once and for all. What the United States is not considering is that there cannot be any victory against the terrorist forces unless it develops comprehensive anti-terrorism policies. Firing cruise missiles or using UAVs to shoot a group of terrorists here and there, or sending Special Forces to take out a few terrorists is not the solution. Actions of that nature only intensify feelings of hatred and revenge against U.S. personnel all over the world. If the United States’ invasion of Iraq taught anything to America, it is that the use of military power (“hard” power) alone is no guarantee of victory.

As President Obama is busy developing some sort of blueprint (I will not call it a strategy, because there is no such thing up to this time), Pakistan and Afghanistan look increasingly precarious places. In both those countries, Islamist forces are on the offensive. Iran, totally unrelated to the latest episode of terrorism, is getting increasingly unstable. The Iranophobes in America are eagerly waiting for the Islamic regime to fall, hoping that the next government will be pro-Western. No one is considering that the alternative to the Islamic Republic might be chaos, which might have its own deleterious spillover effects in Iraq.

Across the Persian Gulf, Yemen is boiling over as another failed state. Northern Yemen and areas of Saudi Arabia contiguous to it have become the new battleground between forces of those two countries and al-Qaida, with the United States increasing its pressure on both of those countries to let loose their hard power on them. America’s answer to problems of al-Qaida is: kill, kill, kill, never mind what happens to Yemen or Saudi Arabia in the process. Farther East to the Arabian Peninsula is the Horn of Africa, which contains Somalia, Ethiopia, and Eretria. Somalia is already the poster child candidate for a failed state, while Ethiopia and Eretria are right behind it.

The question of the hour—indeed, of the decade—is what should be done about all these countries that are steadily becoming havens for al-Qaida. Does the United States have enough cruise missiles to shoot at all of them, ensuring the eradication of all supporters of al-Qaida? Does it have enough drones to fly them on a 7/24 basis on all the aforementioned countries?

In the last presidential election, there was no debate about how to win against the terrorists worldwide. Terrorism as an issue had already fallen way down on the list of American voters’ concerns during that presidential campaign. Candidate Obama made his electoral fortune by banging the drum of the failed policies of Bush, and then insisting that he would go after al-Qaida and would do everything to eradicate it in Afghanistan and in Pakistan. Who could have argued against that without having his/her patriotism questioned? What bears repeating here is that the 2008 presidential election campaign was totally devoid of any debate regarding how to be victorious over global terrorist forces because, by then, the 9/11 attacks were fading in American memories.

That fading process would have continued if not for the fact that Obama remained true to his promise and started the use of hard power in Afghanistan and Pakistan, assuming that he would win where his predecessor had failed.

The widening popularity of al-Qaida on the Arabian Peninsula and on the Horn of Africa, and its sustaining capacity in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, should intensify the feeling in the U.S. that the need of the hour is to develop comprehensive anti-terrorism policies, and not to solely rely on killing (counterterrorism emphasis) and hope that such a measure would also eradicate terrorism. But right now, examining the public debate, one gets the feeling that the American government is in the process of reinventing the wheel. There is the usual blame game that various agencies are still not cooperating; or the process of terrorist monitoring has become so cumbersome that it does not work even when a young man’s father reports to the American embassy that his son might have joined the ranks of the terrorists, yet that young man is allowed to travel to the United States.

Watching the process of recrimination, looking for fall guys, the blame game that is currently in progress in Washington, one wonders whether the lone superpower would ever become invulnerable to the actions of those who attach no value to life, neither of their own nor of others.
If there is a fall guy inside the United States in this whole process of countering terrorism, it is the cumbersomeness related to securing America that has become the chief culprit of making America unsafe. The strength of the terrorists stems from the fact that they operate on the basis of simplicity: one person or a few persons specialize in or invent new ways of creating death and mayhem. All they have to do is to find just one or more loopholes in the cumbersome security processes. At least in incidents of this nature, the culprit is the incompetence of the intricate bureaucracies, which promise to become even more intricate and, in all likelihood, more incompetent in the coming months.

The recommendations of the 9/11 Commission of creating an intelligence czar was a wise one. Instead, Congress diluted most of the recommendations of that Commission by playing politics. Today, we have eight or more intelligence agencies. All of them are busy fighting budget and turf battles and performing the redundant tasks of collecting intelligence. Those types of redundancies are also contributing further to the aforementioned cumbersomeness. As the co-Chairs of the 9/11 Commission observed in their OpEd of January 11, 2010, “The DNI [Director of National Intelligence] has been hobbled by disputes over its size, mission and authority, but forcing information-sharing and enabling the NCTC’s [National Counterterrorism Center] best analysts to do their work should not be subject to dispute.”

What America needs is an anti-terrorism strategy that is geared toward homeland security, but a strategy that also deals with causes of global terrorism that is focused on Africa, the Middle East, and South, Central, and Southeast Asia. Of these regions, Africa—the Horn and the trans-Sahel region, North and West Africa—is where terrorism is likely to run rampant during the next decade. South Asia and the Middle East will remain hotbeds of terrorism from now until at least the middle of the next decade. Central Asia appears calm; however, we know so little about that region because countries of that area are governed by autocrats who want absolutely no outside scrutiny of their tyrannical rule. So, it is a safe bet that one or more countries of Central Asia is likely to experience internal turbulence or even violent regime change. In all likelihood, such change would not result because of terrorist groups, but such groups are most likely to take every advantage of the resultant political turbulence.

If the prognostications of increased transnational turbulence are correct, then it behooves the United States to have trans-regional strategies to counter such events. Merely appointing “czars” and “special envoys” is not enough. However, considering how unprepared the United States has shown itself to be about dealing with terrorism last December, one has little reason to remain optimistic.

By the same token, the United States has to think long and hard about taking military action again Iran while it is about to increase its troop deployment in Afghanistan. At the present time, American forces can become easy targets of Iranian asymmetric-war-related activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, at a time when the political tide in Afghanistan is already heavily favoring the Taliban, and when internal violence in Iraq appears to be escalating.  For a predominantly Shia country, Iran has shown remarkable pragmatism in cooperating with intensely anti-American Sunni Islamist groups in the past to make matters worse for American forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Under these circumstances, a potentially effective option for the U.S. is to heavily lobby China and Russia to support U.N. sanctions on Iran. However, in this regard, both of those countries have major strategic agendas of their own related to Iran. First, Iran is a major source of energy supplies for China. Second, it serves as a major source of hard currency for Russian nuclear technology and other military weapons at a time when Russia’s economy remains heavily reliant on income from energy sources. Third, Iran looms large in both Chinese and Russian maneuvers for the evolution of a multipolar global order. As a state that has never accepted America’s dominant role in the Middle East, and as a country that retains major clout in Iraq and Lebanon and high popularity in Gaza for its support of Hamas, Iran has been indirectly promoting the Sino-Russian agenda of challenging America’s dominance in the Arab world and multipolarity.

At least for now, the Obama administration has scored a victory when it received the backing of Beijing and Moscow for an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) resolution that censured Iran and ordered it to halt construction of a secret uranium enrichment plant near the city of Qom. China’s support for this resolution was the result of Iran’s backtracking on a deal with the five-plus-one countries (Perm-5 of the UNSC plus Germany) for removing most of its nuclear fuel stocks abroad for the import of material needed for its medical research reactor.

The vote also came at a time when the American President, during his recent trip, was more than forthcoming in assuring China that the lone superpower has no intention of containing China. On the contrary, Obama stated that his administration is fully focused on engaging it. The overall tone of the global coverage of President Obama’s trip to China had all the ingredients to boost the self-confidence of the Chinese leadership that their country has indeed arrived on the global platform as the next candidate for superpowerdom.

Under these circumstances, China has no intention of ruining its moment of glory by refusing to cooperate with the United States just to please Iran. The most understated fact of Sino-Iranian relations is that Iran needs China more than the other way around. As much as China is in need of foreign energy sources, it also knows that, given the international sanction-ridden environment, Iran is quite eager to sell its oil and gas to China. Iran has also become an observer in the Sino-Russian-dominated Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which is steadily acquiring a heightened global visibility. So, China can afford to play the seesaw version of first siding with Iran, then with the United States, and then calculating the ebb-and-flow of events before decding its next move.

The support of the aforementioned IAEA resolution by the dual-headed leadership in Russia—between President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin—was somewhat surprising, because, while Medvedev appears flexible in dealing with the United States, Putin is not. The latter is more resolute in asserting Russia’s role as a wannabe superpower. In a recent speech during the United Russia Party’s 11^th Congress, Medvedev criticized its “conservative” stance on a number of issues faced by Russia, and accentuated the urgent need for political modernization. He also stated that the United Russia “needs to step up and reform itself and put a halt to ‘administrative excesses’ within.” Those comments were given global coverage because Putin is the Chairman of that party. At least for now, there have been reports of evident friction between Medvedev and Putin.

It is hard to conclude whether Russia’s support of the IAEA resolution was an outcome of the split between Medvedev and Putin (who is known for his strong support of providing assistance to Iran as an integral aspect of his policy of Russia’s assertiveness), or whether that country is merely signaling Iran to be more forthcoming on the nuclear issue toward Perm-5-plus-one countries.

Iran’s behavior regarding the nuclear issue has become even more complicated as a result of its June 2009 presidential election, which has raised serious questions about the current nature of domestic support for that issue.

It is a well-known fact that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not the “decider” on that issue, the Supreme Leader Ali Khameini is. But why is it that the Iranian representative was authorized to negotiate with the representatives of the Perm-5 plus one, and then Iran decided to backtrack on the deal that he made at the conclusion of those negotiations? The Janus-faced foreign policy of the Islamic Republic has always been a confusing variable for Western diplomats. It has become even more confusing as Iran is facing rising domestic tensions and the usual slogans of “death to America” are increasingly interspersed with slogans of “death to dictators” (the latter being Khameini and Ahmadinejad).  The Iranian leadership may very well be afraid to offer concessions to the Perm-5-plus-one countries that might be misconstrued, both inside and outside of Iran, as a sign of its wobbliness.

To add further perplexity to an already confused situation, the world is told that Iranian authorities confiscated the Nobel medal from its Nobel Laureate, Shirin Ebadi, one of the very faces of Iran that are recognized as reasons for hope and moderation in that country. Her husband was reportedly arrested and severely beaten by Iranian authorities. Iran has denied the report about the medal, but not about Ebadi’s husband.

As Iran is steadily heading on the road to even more confusion and chaos, President Obama’s task of negotiating with that country is becoming progressively more difficult. His strategy of developing a great power consensus on denuclearizing Iran emerges as a highly thoughtful and potentially most constructive one. However, what is not clear at this point is how far China and Russia are willing to go to cooperate with the United States regarding Iran, which remains a major actor in the strategic maneuvers of both Beijing and Moscow in the evolution of a multipolar global power arrangement.

The Financial Times, a right of center but highly respected newspaper, could not resist about coming up with a sensational headline: “Hizbollah confirms broad aid for Hamas.”  The Hizbollah-Hamas connection is not exactly an unknown variable, only its specifics are.  Even after the admission of Hezbollah’s deputy leader that his organization is providing military assistance to Hamas, the issue still remains murky and unconfirmed by other sources.  Why, then, is there so much hoopla about Hezbollah’s admission of support for Hamas? Because that reality only underscores the effective exercise of “smart power” on the part of Iran—Hezbollah’s chief backer—in the Sunni Middle East.  That is also worrying the United States, which, under the Obama administration, is relearning to come up with its own smart power-related maneuvers towards Iran.

For the uninitiated, “hard power” is a euphemism for military power.  Soft power, on the contrary, describes the use of all other activities such as diplomacy, cultural variables, trade, and aid, etc.  Joseph Nye, a Harvard Professor and the coiner of the phrase “soft power” described smart power as: It “is about tapping into diverse sources of American power, including our soft power, to attract others. It is about how we can get other countries to share our goals without resorting to coercion, which is limited and inevitably costly.”

The United States has been one of the oldest practitioners of smart power without even coining that phrase or without even recognizing the necessity for harping on it.  The only reason that phrase appears as a novel idea during the Obama presidency is because it followed an administration (that of George W. Bush), which almost ruined America’s reputation as a practitioner of soft power. 

Bush’s exercise of unilateralism, his voluble pronouncements about “regime change,” his use of intolerable phrases such as “axis of evil,” “either you are with us or you are against us,” and “preemptive wars” created so much global antagonism toward the lone superpower that the international community has pretty much forgotten the unsullied role of the United States in rebuilding the global economic and political order from the ruins of World War II. 

The American exercise of hubris worldwide during the eight years of George W. Bush created an unpleasant impression on the collective memory of the international community.  So the global discussion of the potential demise of the United States as the presiding power of the unipolar global order was received as welcome news throughout the world.  However, President Barack H. Obama’s promise of the exercise of soft power has acquired the status of a soothing melody emanating from Washington, D.C., after a long-lasting thunder storm.

Iran has emerged as a leading practitioner of smart power in the wake of America’s invasion of Iraq.  However, it has deftly mixed that soft power with its own exercise of hard power, by challenging America’s invasion and continued occupation of Iraq.  Iran could do that, ironically, because the United States played a crucial role in the creation of a Shia-dominated political order in Iraq.  In the new Iraq, Iran supported those who hated the American presence—most significantly Muqtada al-Sadr and his ilk.  Even those who were not active in demonstrating their hatred toward the United States felt much empathy for the insurgent activities of the Mahdi Army (which was a pro-Muqtada Shia paramilitary force).  Iran was also one of the chief backers of Hezbollah during the aforementioned 2006 war against Israel.

There also have been rumors of Iran’s alleged cooperation with al-Qaida in Iraq in that organization’s asymmetric war against the U.S.  Iran was most effective in the use of its al-Quds elite force in creating an anti-American chaos in Iraq between 2003 and 2006.  That force specializes in working closely with non-state actors in such countries as Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Palestine.  Iran clearly understood that the most effective way of using smart power was to establish its credibility through the use of hard and soft power, which it also has been exercising in the aforementioned countries.

As the Obama administration contemplates having a comprehensive dialogue with Iran, it has remained wary about that country’s rising potential clout in the Middle East.  The Sunni Arab states—who have been most comfortable in dealing with the United States during and after the Cold War years—envisage Iran’s growing popularity with considerable apprehension.  They do not know how to deal with it because it is heavily slanted in favor of populism, which the Arab autocrats envision as a threat to their archaic rule.  Their memory of the Islamic Revolution of the late 1970s is being revived.  At that time, the late Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini used the plight of the Mustadafeen (the underprivileged or the downtrodden) as a battle cry for ousting the pro-American Shah of Iran.  Now, even without that rallying call, Iran’s message is interpreted as an implicit message for anti-monarchical or anti-dictatorial changes in the Arab Middle East. 

The pro-American Sunni monarchs have long dominated the Middle Eastern political scenes without attempting to resolve the Palestinian issue.  By challenging the U.S. in Iraq and by supporting the Hezbollah of Lebanon, which challenged and survived the punishing military attacks of Israel in the war of July-August 2006, Iran is seen as the new liberator of the Mustadafeen of the Middle East.

As the United States edges toward negotiating with Iran, Iran’s hardline approach toward the lone superpower appears as an effective strategy for the Middle Eastern masses, a strategy no Arab ruler has the nerve to pursue on his own.  However, for Iran, its approach is more of an exercise of soft power than anything else. 

It is based on a blend of realism, Machiavellianism, rationalism of keeping its option of a dialogue with the United States very much open, and, above all, “Islamic populism” of a new variety.  This particular brand of populism is also open for a rapprochement with the U.S., which had maintained a strident anti-Iranian posture throughout the existence of the Islamic Republic.

If Iran’s exercise of soft power succeeds in reaching a comprehensive rapprochement with the United States, its leadership of the world of Islam will be an unquestionable reality.  While neighboring Pakistan has been reduced to a client state of the United States, and while Arab rulers are struggling to find common ground for the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iran is beginning to be viewed by the United States as a major Muslim country, and a state with which it must reach a modus Vivendi.  That is the ultimate success of Iran’s exercise of soft power.

In the post-9/11 era, America’s war against terrorism was interpreted as a war against Islam. Usama Bin Laden harped on that issue quite consistently and effectively, and a large number of Muslims believed him.

President George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan to retaliate against al-Qaida and its chief sponsors, the Taliban regime.  It was expected that he would focus on constructing that country after ousting the Taliban.  But Bush went after Saddam Hussein’s regime, something he wanted to do soon after he entered the White House. His determination to invade Iraq went blind against all sings of protests and disagreements to the contrary.  Perhaps it was his slowly burning, but intense, rage to eliminate the man who wanted to “kill my Dad”—as he frequently stated—that led him to ignore what was in America’s best interests.

The blood and gore, and enormous instability and turbulence, that stemmed from Bush’s revenge against Saddam created a deeply-rooted and an equally intense hostility and hatred toward the United States.  One has to examine the Pew public opinion polls to get a real sense of how much America was despised in the world of Islam, from Indonesia to Morocco, while Bush sat in the White House.

Bush might have been sincere in insisting that his country has no quarrel with Islam.  But one has to examine the daily flow of briefings that Donald Rumsfeld sent for the President’s reading that were peppered with Biblical quotes.  A contemporary reader of those briefings is left with little doubt that a self-styled born-again Christian president was really on a crusade against the terrorists.

That type of retrospective debate aside, what was working against America during the Bush presidency was that the United States was occupying two lands of Islam:  Iraq and Afghanistan.  Iraq became a hellish place between 2003 and the early part of 2007.  In 2006, there were several powerful voices inside the U.S. urging Bush to “declare victory and get out of Iraq.”

Then came the Sunni protest movement against al-Qaida in Mesopotamia (AQIM) and the introduction of the “Surge” by the U.S. force commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus.  Aside from inserting more troops in Iraq, the United States also introduced a new counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine.  That doctrine became a success, largely because it was supported by the Sunni insurgents—also known as the Sahwa or the “Sons of Iraq” movement.

That reality also improved the security situation inside that country.  Still, the hatred of Bush and antipathy toward the United States remained pervasive all over the Muslim world.  It was clear that, even if Bush were to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq, the hatred of Bush and America was not about to dissipate.  A clean break from his administration was necessary before Muslims were to be persuaded that the lone superpower was not fighting a war against their religion.

President Barack Obama has fulfilled that requirement.  The son of a Muslim father, and a person who spent four years of his life in Indonesia—despite the fact that he is a Christian—he has brought an enormous amount of credibility to his office.  Even though, under Obama, the United States is still occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, he is believed when he says that his country has no fight with Islam.

President Obama is not part of the white American elites, who read Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis’s contentious books on Muslim and Arab countries and became instant “experts” on Islam and Muslims.  Obama understands the intricacies and multi-dimensionalities related to Islam and the Muslim world, and is not ready to formulate instant judgment. On the contrary, Bush saw the world of Islam through his highly partisan lens of a “born-again” Christian faith.

Obama, also a Christian, does not have the Manichean perspectives related to the Christian evangelical world.  Muslims sense his sophisticated and respectful view of the world when they hear him speak.  Bush could never convey that sense.  Even when he might have been sincere when he said that his administration is not fighting Islam, his policies conveyed a contrary perspective to most Muslims all over the world.  Obama does not carry that baggage when he speaks to Muslims.  He is much more believable than Bush ever was for the Muslim masses.

Muslims also know that Obama is no Bush.  He is very sincere in his resolve to arrive at a rapprochement with their world.  Obama sent his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to the largest Muslim country, Indonesia.  He declared the resolve to arrive at political understanding with Iran.  He went to Turkey and delivered a major speech in his message of peace and respect toward the Muslim world.  Obama told Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, during their first meeting, that he supports a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and he also told him that Israel must stop building settlements in order to reach a peace with the Palestinians.  Obama’s speech in Cairo was yet another historical step in his desire to reach a grand bargain with Muslims.

By speaking candidly to the Muslim world, President Obama has taken a major step in nullifying Bin Laden’s recurring diatribe that portrays a negative image of the United States.  Muslims of the world at large are likely to give enormous credence to Obama and his respectful message of peace and harmony.

The Bin Laden camp understood how potentially powerful Obama’s message from Cairo was likely to be.  Bin Laden decided to issue his own video, in an attempt to preempt the American president.  But Obama’s message had the power of a tidal wave, while Usama’s message barely had the influence of a “storm in a teapot.”

The Muslim world and the United States under Obama are entering a new phase.  The post-Cairo speech period has to be followed up by specific maneuvers toward a number of major Muslim issues where America’s presence and influence are enormous. They include creating new momentums in the peace process in the Palestine, nation-building in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and pushing India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir conflict.   

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dispatch reads:  “Tony Blair makes his first trip to the Gaza Strip.”  In the growing global economic meltdown, the world has forgotten the suffering of the Palestinians who became victims of Israel’s “war” against Hamas.  How can there be a war between the most well equipped military of the Middle East and a state which does not even have an armed force of any credibility.  But this is the era of asymmetric war, and Hamas did launch rockets or missiles on Israel.  Those terror weapons did not cause much damage, but they provided a “justification” for Israel to let loose its military wrath on the civilian Palestinians.

In his book, Road to Lebanon, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times talked about Hama Rules established by the butcher of Syria, Hafez al-Assad, father of the current dictator, Bishara Assad.  According to those rules, if his authority were to be challenged by Islamist forces, he would completely destroy their villages, without any regard to civilian casualties.  He wanted to instill ultimate fear of destruction in the hearts and minds of the Islamists.  They understood that message, and Syria has remained just another “republic of fear” in the Middle East.  The other such republics are Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.  The message to all potential Islamists or those who challenge the political status quo in those states is that the brutal arm of the state will fall on them with utmost use of violence, and they will be eradicated.  That is how republics of fear maintain fear and, thereby, their continued rule.

Israel is also operating on the basis of a similar rule.  It tells the Palestinians within the occupied territory and the Hezbollah of Lebanon that if they challenge the Jewish state, it will be forced to “reestablish” its deterrence.  That phrase is merely a euphemism for using disproportionate military power to bring about enormous destruction of civilian infrastructure and human lives to sow so much fear in the hearts and minds of the Palestinians and the Lebanese that they will think twice about challenging Israel.  In this sense, Israel has remained another “republic of fear” for the Palestinians.

However, the Palestinians have not been impressed or fearful of what Israel’s American-supplied weapons will do to them.  In the information age, they understand how powerful the images of destruction and mayhem really are.  Those images continue to underscore the limits of using military power to deprive them of freedom and dignity.  The United States learned that lesson in Iraq the hard way.  Its proud campaign of “shock and awe” could not break the freedom loving spirit of the Iraqis.  Consequently, Washington worked diligently to pave the way for its departure from Iraq.  However, the Palestinians are not likely to encounter similar positive results aimed at ending the Israeli occupation of their land.  So, they periodically challenge the Jewish state, get killed, and have their properties destroyed as a result.  But in the process, they are also forcing the world to get its head out of the sand and face the urgency of bringing an end to the occupation of their homeland.  In the meantime, the Palestinians misery continues to grow.

When Barack Obama became President, there ensued a round of hoopla stemming from the appointment of Special Envoys to the Middle East and to Pakistan-Afghanistan.  George Mitchell became a special envoy for the Middle East, while Richard Holbrooke was named as a special representative for Pakistan-Afghanistan.  The high hope was that, by giving high visibility to conflicts afflicting those regions, the United States would be able to find solutions.  At least at first blush, no one can be critical of that approach.  However, what is lost in the period of high hopes following Obama’s election to the White House is that a lot of conventional thinking regarding the Middle East must also be discarded.

First, and foremost, it should be clearly understood is that the United States will not succeed unless it adopts a fresh approach toward Hamas.   The chief requirement of that approach is that Hamas should be dealt with directly by Special Envoy George Mitchell in his quest for common ground.  Isolating Hamas by depicting it as a “terrorist” organization will not do.  That was the simple-mindedness of the Bush era.  In the post-9/11 era, there were few entities in the entire world of Islam that the United States did not declare as “terrorists.”  After adopting such a wrong-headed blanket approach, one wonders why the lone superpower was perplexed as to why the Islamist groups were so persuasive in making an argument within the Islamic countries that their religion was under attack.  

In addition, there are two other obstacles in the way of the United States.  The first one is what emerges as the new government in Israel.  Considering the fact that the Likud and the Kadima parties failed to gain impressive majority votes in their own right, the coalition government—no matter who becomes Prime Minister—will only preside over an impasse on the Palestinian conflict for the foreseeable future.  There is nothing that Mitchell is likely to do or say to persuade the Israeli leaders to be daring or forthcoming in terms of offering major concessions to the Palestinians, when they have no such mandates from their voters.  

Then there also are ample divisions among the Palestinians.  Who really speaks for them?  Certainly not the Fatah Party, nor Mahmud Abbas who has a reputation among his people of being a sycophant of the Americans and the Israelis.  Hamas is too confrontational and Abbas is too diffident.   Under these circumstances, the issue of who speaks for the Palestinians remains unresolved.  Even though Hamas is elected by the Palestinians, there is that nagging question whether their representation should undergo a new endorsement through another round of elections.

So the real prospect of resolution of the Palestinian issue faces a very dim future.  In the meantime, special envoys called Tony Blair or George Mitchell periodically surface to make news without creating any real hope for realistic breakthroughs in negotiations between the warring Palestinians and Israelis.  The Israeli voters have established that they are not in favor of any major concessions, and concessions to whom?  Hamas, which has fired missiles over their homeland?  Certainly not Abbas, who has flimsy legitimacy—if any at all—among the Palestinians.  In the meantime, Israeli leaders might feel smug that they have established their deterrence, and Palestinians will think twice before launching more missiles toward Israel.   The new republic of fear is as much on shaky grounds as the ones led by Arab dictators.

The U.S. turned Iraq into hell between 2005 and 2006; Pakistan is steadily edging toward becoming a hellish place in the post-9/11 era; and Afghanistan is heading in that direction.  In the Horn of Africa, a similar situation prevails.

In the post-9/11 era, the militarily powerful nations have taken it upon themselves to set the “rules of engagement” for wars or war-like violence in Muslim lands, while the extremists are letting loose violence and mayhem from their side.  Iraq had its killing fields between 2005 and 2007, and Afghanistan’s most “fertile” killing fields started in the late 1970s, when the Soviet Union invaded it with a view to incorporating it into the Soviet empire.  Those killing fields continue to multiply in the first decade of the 21^st Century.  Lebanon’s killing fields come alive periodically, and—in view of its highly explosive internal dynamics—that country seems at the precipice of witnessing them on a regular basis.  Gaza’s killing fields are getting bloodier by the hour.  

The chief victims of this bloody phenomenon are the ordinary people, whose main aspirations is are to have productive careers, raise families, and live happily.  But happiness is increasingly becoming a rare commodity.

Here is the essence of the problem in many Muslim countries:  The U.S. has decided to wage violence in the name of that awful phrase “global war on terrorism,” which is as meaningless as the “war on poverty.”  Terrorism, like poverty, has been around forever, and no use of military power alone will eradicate it from the face of the earth.  Awful concepts like “regime change,” “preemptive war,” and the “war of choice” were applied to Muslim countries.  George W. Bush’s warning, “either you are with us or with the terrorists,” was also largely aimed at Muslim countries. 

The United States encountered something called the “Iraqi quagmire,” and almost lost its war in that country until the Sunni Muslims came to its rescue.  The same group (Sons of Iraq) is still crucial for the durability of peace and continued success of America’s “surge” strategy.  A strategy, which was aimed at clearing the hostile territory, by holding it, stationing security forces, and by rebuilding civilian authority and economic development.  But that is just one precondition; the other being a systematic inclusion of Sunni Muslims in the governance of Iraq.  Iraq remains a work in progress.  It is likely to return to its instability of 2005-2007, if the Sunnis do not become an important part of its ruling circles.

Israel has adopted the same approach—letting loose its military fury—in the name of establishing its “credible deterrence” among Arab nations, especially since it was humiliated by the Hezbollah in the “war” of July-August 2006.  Purely on a force-on-force basis, Israel did not lose that war.  Its mistake was that it established very precise goals of eradicating Hezbollah and having its own captive soldiers released.  When those objectives were not achieved and Israel stopped bombing Southern Lebanon, both the Western and the Arab media declared it the “loser” of that war.  To Israel’s bitter resentment, the Hezbollah not only survived, but became an inordinately popular organization in the Arab streets, as well as in Lebanon.  As such, it also challenged the governing authority of the U.S.-backed government of Premier Fouad Siniora.  Siniora has remained a weak head of the government in Lebanon primarily, if not solely, because Washington supports him.  Consequently, the legitimacy of the government in Lebanon remains shaky, at best. 

It has been a long-established fact that no outside power can institute its credibility inside a country through the use of military force or through occupation alone.  That is a universal principle. 

Syria learned that lesson at the end of many years of occupying Lebanon.  The U.S. has also learned that bitter reality after remaining an occupying power in Iraq for the past eight years.  It is likely to face the same fate in Afghanistan.  Israel refuses to learn that lesson as it invades Gaza and remains an occupying power of Palestine.  The gloomiest fact of that occupation is that the mounting toll of Palestinians will create new generations of even more enduring—and even more radical-minded—resistance to Israel than Hezbollah and Hamas have thus far demonstrated.

Unlike the historical accord between the U.S. military and the Sons of Iraq, no basis of rapprochement has been established between Israel and the Palestinians.  The Oslo Peace Accords of the early 1990s are long dead and buried.  Israel does not want to trade land for peace, and the Palestinians are much too divided to offer the Jewish state a great deal of confidence that they are ready to live in peace with their Jewish counterparts. 

Israel played a crucial role, if not in the creation of Hamas, then in definitely enhancing the presence and clout of that organization in the occupied territory many years ago.  As an Israeli historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Zeev Sternell, stated, “Israel thought that it was a smart ploy to push the Islamists against the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO).”  Today, Hamas is the governing authority in Gaza.  Ironically, Israel’s stated objective of waging a war against Gaza is to weaken, if not eliminate, Hamas. 

However, no matter how badly the military conflict damages Hamas, it is likely to emerge as the most popular organization within the occupied Palestine as well as in the rest of the Muslim world.  According to a news dispatch from Egypt, “As the war in Gaza burned though its 14^th day, Arab governments have felt their legitimacy challenged with an uncommon virulence.”  It adds, “With each passing day, and each Palestinian death, the popularity of Hamas and other radical movements has ratcheted higher on the Arab street, while the standing of Arab leaders has suffered.”

The frustrations of the Arab masses stem from a reason that is larger than the occupation of Palestine, even though the mounting suffering of the Palestinians is also adding further fuel to those frustrations.  The chief reason for the Arab frustrations is the presence of authoritarian rule, which lingers on like an eternal curse over their existence.  From their point of view, their collective suffering will not end unless the United States stops supporting the status quo in their countries.  From the U.S. side, that authoritarian rule-based status quo is preferred over the alternative–the return of Islamist rule.  Two examples continue to haunt the U.S. decisionmakers–the Islamist-dominated rule in Iraq and the successful emergence of Hamas as the ruling entity after the elections of January 2006.  The Arab autocrats in Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia suffer from the same fear.  The emergence of Hamas as the governing body over Palestine did not end their internal turbulence. 

The plight of the Palestinians was worsened when, after a bitter fight between Hamas and Fatah in June 2007, the latter took over the West bank, while Hamas maintained its political control of Gaza.  However, Hamas was unable to make a breakthrough regarding reaching a peace an agreement with Israel. 

Egypt did bring about a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in June 2008.  That agreement ended early last November.  The fact that Hamas was describing that agreement as tahdiya (a period of calm, which is temporary), as opposed to hudna (truce, which is concrete and lasting) underscored the fact that it was only a tactical maneuver.  The leaders of Hamas were adamant about describing on Al-Jazeera a tahdiya as “a tactic in conflict management and a phase in the framework of the resistance [meaning all forms of struggle].” The Israelis were not willing to fall for that ploy.  That so-called tahdiya ended early last November.  The escalating violence between the two sides since then has led to the Israeli military invasion of Gaza.

The systematic destruction of the already feeble institutional infrastructures and mounting human misery has already transformed Gaza into a hellish place.  Even though Hamas challenged Israel, and even though Hamas is also largely responsible for the breakdown of the tahdiya, the fact that Israel has been wreaking major havoc and is responsible for mounting civilian deaths in Gaza, Hamas’ popularity is most likely to escalate.  

In a perverse way, similar conditions prevail in Afghanistan.  The Western occupation forces are attempting to strengthen the authority of the government of President Hamid Karzai, whom most Pushtoon regard as a puppet of the United States.  The legitimacy of the Karzai government is a shrinking commodity.  Historically speaking, the occupiers of Afghanistan—from Alexander the Great to the Soviet Union—have faced nothing but bloody battles and resulting defeat.  The Taliban—who are primarily Pushtoon—know that fact only too well.  They also know that history is on their side, as long as they do not let up on the use of violence.  The United States cannot afford to lose in Afghanistan, and the Taliban refuse to seek a rapprochement with the Karzai government.  In the process, Afghanistan has become a hellish place.

No single actor is more responsible in Pakistan’s emergence as a highly unstable country than Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and General Zia ul-Huq.  The former started the process of Islamization of that country, and the latter took it to the extreme.  The practice of using an extremist interpretation of Sunni Islam, which was intensified under Zia’s rule, was continued under the rule of General Pervez Musharraf, but with a different twist. 

Zia was forthright about his commitment to the extremist interpretation of Sunni Islam and used it unabashedly to maintain himself in power.  Musharraf, on the contrary, was duplicitous and cunning.  He presented the face of moderation toward the American interlocutor, while sustaining his alliance with the Islamists inside his country, especially in Baluchistan and in the border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The extremist Islamist forces had a clear sense that Musharraf was creating a façade of suppressing or containing them.  They understood that game and played along until they decided to take on the Army, after the massacre at the Lal Masjid (red mosque) on July 13, 2007.  That bloody event marked the beginning of the end of the Musharraf regime.  But when he was forced out of office and democracy returned to Pakistan, it was a feeble government while extremist forces were very much on the offensive.

The continued escalated pace of violence—which resulted in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto on December 27, 2007, and an assassination attempt on the life of Prime Minister Yusuf Reza Gilani on September 3, 2008—numerous suicide attacks and the resultant deaths of civilians as well as military personnel, leave little doubt about the march of Pakistan toward further instability.

As the United States gets ready to enlarge the presence of its troops in Afghanistan, the biggest question is whether the Surge strategy can be successfully implemented in Afghanistan.  Even if one were to be optimistic about such prospects, it should be kept in mind that stability and security of Afghanistan has been intrinsically linked to the security and stability of Pakistan since the 1980s.  The United States has known that fact.  But, under the administration of President Barack Obama, it might not remember, at its own peril.

In summarizing the overall situation in many Muslim countries, what is needed in Gaza, for starters, is a reinstatement of indirect negotiations between the parties, with Egypt serving, once again, as an intermediary.  After that, the only alternative for the Obama administration will be to plunge itself into endless rounds of negotiations, first with Hamas and Fatah, and then by bringing all Arab and Israeli contenders to the negotiating table. 

Even under the heap of mounting bitterness, the Palestinians know that the United States is the only actor that can exercise its influence on Israel.  This is not about putting pressure on the Jewish state.  Israelis know better than anyone else that there is no way they can resolve the conflict with the Palestinians by resorting to military force alone.   However, there is no denial of the significant role of an intermediary.  And only the U.S. can play that role, largely because Israel trusts the U.S., and also because it is a major recipient of U.S. military and economic assistance.  Besides, the Obama administration does not carry the same baggage of high partisanship that the Bush administration demonstrated toward Israel.

In South Asia, there is an urgent need for the application of a new “surge” strategy.  Such a strategy must treat Pakistan and Afghanistan as two sides of the same coin and it should be multi-dimensional.  Its features include massive economic assistance, revision of educational curricula, building of civilian infrastructure, implementation of civil-military relations that assign supremacy of civilian authority, eradication of the opium trade culture, and elimination of the proliferation of small arms from both Pakistan and Afghanistan. 

The chief tactic to escalate the feeling of security in the Pakistani ruling circles (of which the Pakistan Army is the most important part) is to ensure that India has minimal diplomatic presence in Afghanistan.  Any heightened Indian diplomatic presence in Afghanistan—which is the current reality on the ground—will motivate Pakistan to destabilize Afghanistan, fearing collusion between Afghanistan and India, whose purpose it is to destabilize Pakistan.  A general suspicion is that Pakistan’s highly secretive intelligence service, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), sponsored the terrorist attack on the Indian embassy in Afghanistan in July 2008. 

The most unfortunate part of the current reality is that both Pakistan and Afghanistan have become fertile places for the mushrooming of extremism.  The deteriorating quality of life in those countries—as is also the case in occupied Palestine—is definitely adding further momentum for the growth of that phenomenon.  No simple solution that comprises only the use of military force will work.  In the pre-surge days, Iraq was the primary example of that fact.  It was only through the multidimensional application of the surge strategy that Iraq is making steady progress toward political stability.  That reality becomes a powerful argument for the implementation of the aforementioned multidimensional strategy in Afghanistan.

There is some reason to be optimistic, however, that the United States will develop a sophisticated understanding of the significance of Pakistan in the coming days.  According to a recent New York Times dispatch, the outgoing Bush administration has handed over to the Obama transition team a lengthy report on Afghanistan and Pakistan.  That report concluded, “that in the end, the United States has far more at stake in preventing Pakistan’s collapse than it does in stabilizing Afghanistan or Iraq.”