AMMAN, Jordan — I’m not sure if it’s mere serendipity or anything more challenging, but every time I have come to Jordan recently, my trip has coincided with the visit of a senior American official. Three weeks ago I was in Amman at the same time as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and this week my fellow visitor to the Jordanian capital was Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
These top officials from Washington seem less significant these days in many ways, due to a drop in global perceptions of the United States. Over a decade and a half since the Cold War ended, we hear less from leading American academics, polemicists, and entertainers who offer theories that explain the new grand order of the world. Most of those theories have tended to see the world from the US perspective, which is a perfectly normal sort of temporary self-infatuation, given the power of the United States globally.
We may be able, conversely, to identify new trends that reflect how the rest of the world looks at the United States. I can think of three principal criteria by which we can gauge how the world perceives American values (positively) and foreign policy (negatively): public opinion as measured by many credible opinion polls, the policies of foreign governments, and the manner in which senior American officials are treated by their hosts, the public and the media in countries they visit.
On all three counts, the United States is slipping in the eyes of the world. But I suspect we’re seeing something far more significant than just a normal rising curve of anti-American sentiments in response to America’s robust use of its power around the world. Several related trends seem to be converging and are most visible in the Middle East.
The first is the fact that most countries around the world — especially those the US tries to bully — have lost both fear and respect for the United States, a rather unusual state of affairs. This is reflected in the spirit of defiance and resistance that some countries display when confronted with American pressures, threats or active boycotts. Iran, Syria, Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela are the most common examples, though the behavior of giants like China and Russia also indicates that a growing number of important countries are prepared to go against American wishes.
This mirrors a second important point, which is the increasingly clear lack of practical options the United States and its allies can use in pressuring smaller countries to toe the line and comply with American dictates. Korean and Iranian nuclear developments reflect this point most sharply.
Active boycotts led by the United States also appear to have limited impact. The latest example of this fraying American clout is the boycott of the Hamas-Fateh national unity government in Palestine. Norway, Turkey, the Arab countries and many others have engaged the new Palestinian government. And according to an announcement by the Palestinian information minister on April 16, China and Switzerland have also said they would work with the unity government normally. Many other countries will follow suit. This is partly because if you are an impartial bystander and you are asked to join either the global political morality of the US and UK on one side or the Norwegians, Chinese and Swiss on the other, the Anglo-Americans will lose before the contest starts — given the badly dented perception of them around the world in the wake of their intemperate war-mongering of recent years.
Another trend that may be emerging is the possible broad polarization of two camps in the Middle East and the West. Many in the Middle East see the United States, Israel and many European states as a single political grouping, based most notably on their common policies on Iran’s nuclear industry, the Lebanon war last summer, last year’s Mohammad cartoons controversy, and the boycott of the Hamas-led Palestinian government. Consequently, large swaths of Arab, Iranian and Turkish public opinion — and many governments — are turning hostile to the United States in particular, and even to “the West” more generally. For Washington to alienate simultaneously the three largest Islamic publics in the region — Arabs, Iranians and Turks — is no easy feat. It will go down in history as another negative consequence of misguided Bush Administration policies that have been inordinately driven by Neo-Conservative zealots, pro-Israeli partisans, rightwing American Christian fanatics and other oddballs of a remarkably permissive American political culture.
When I visit Amman, I chat with my mother, my friends and many colleagues in media, politics, academia, the government and civil society. Maybe senior American officials who visit the Middle East regularly should make an effort to expand their conversational circle in order to connect better with the core of Arab and Middle Eastern public opinion that seeks cordial ties with the United States, instead of simply alienating greater and greater portions of it throughout the region.
Rami G. Khouri is an internationally syndicated columnist, the director of the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut, editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, and co-laureate of the 2006 Pax Christi International Peace Award.
Copyright ©2007 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
—————-
Released: 18 April 2007
Word Count: 819
—————-
For rights and permissions, contact:
rights@agenceglobal.com, 1.336.686.9002 or 1.212.731.0757