FrontPageMag
Nichole Hungerford
February 26, 2011

In his speech on the turmoil in Libya, President Obama used the phrase “international community” three times. He did not say the name “Muammar Qaddafi” once. By the time it was obvious that the dictator was slaughtering his own people, vowing to “cleanse Libya house by house” and “die as a martyr,” President Obama could not muster the fortitude to denounce the Qaddafi regime by name or articulate any action that would prevent the loss of human life. With all that is at his disposal to influence the ending of this bloodshed, the president has opted to allow America to stand by silently on the sidelines and watch the massacre unfold.

The president’s response to Libya was so milquetoast, in fact, that even left-wing MSNBC host Chris Matthews was left longing for a Reagan-esque “evil empire” moment. Even liberal commentator Eugene Robinson was moved to call for U.S. action in his recent column. The tone of the president’s remarks exhibited a bizarre disconnect as well. Notwithstanding the president’s great faith in the opinion of the “international community,” a despot like Qaddafi, who speaks earnestly in terms of political cleansing and martyrdom, surely cannot be rhetorically coerced to end his rampage, and he clearly is not sensitive — to say the least — about the feelings of the “international community.”

But the Obama administration is in the grips of a teachable moment. Since taking office, Obama’s goal has been to demonstrate to the world that the U.S. is a team player. To the Arab world in particular, he has sought to prove that the U.S. is not interested in exerting influence in the region, which is considered the source of Islamist discontent by the Left. This, the administration believes, will assuage anti-American sentiment and Arab belligerence, as the president has intimated over and over again in his overtures to the Muslim world. Now, we are witnessing the catastrophic repercussions of such a destructive posture: America is willing to forsake its unrivaled ability to stop monstrous violations of human rights in order to avoid offending the sensibilities of Islamo-fascists.

To be sure, the U.S. has faced similar decisions before. When a freedom-seeking revolt broke out in Hungary in October of 1956 against the U.S.S.R., the anti-communist rebel forces were led to believed the U.S. would come to their aid. In fact, this is one of the reasons the rebel Hungarians fought so successfully for so long against the Soviets. At various points, victory seemed achievable for the uprising, which would have changed the face of the entire Cold War. But President Eisenhower ultimately abandoned and betrayed the Hungarian freedom fighters — and the rebellion was savagely squashed by the Soviets. It is a regrettable and tragic chapter in Cold War history in general and in American foreign policy in particular.

One exoneration of Eisenhower’s policy that could be pointed to is his fear that an international war could have broken out over Hungary, since a nuclear Soviet Russia was a dangerous reality. For Obama, however, there is no such excuse. Numerous Muslim leaders have themselves denounced Qaddafi for the express reason that he is killing Muslims. Certainly, it is in the interest of protesters across the region that Qaddafi be held accountable, lest other autocrats get the impression that dissent can be crushed with impunity. Furthermore, Qaddafi has virtually no credibility in the international community — the Arab League, the African Union, the European Union, and the Islamic Conference have condemned his actions.

Rather, the inaction toward Libya we are seeing today is more reminiscent of the Left’s shameless reaction (or non-reaction) to the mass slaughter of the Iranian people by the Ayatollah Khomeini during the Islamic Revolution. After the pro-Western Shah of Iran (the Left’s bete-noire) was deposed, the Islamic revolutionary forces oversaw a bloody transfer of power. The silence from the Left on this massacre, which was precipitated by the Carter administration’s unconscionable undermining of the Shah’s regime, was deafening.

But what more could one really expect from the political faith? According to the leftist worldview, the U.S. is largely a pernicious force on the world stage and is the cause for the disdain that it attracts worldwide. This is Obama’s view. At this very moment in Libya, the U.S. could be intervening to support internal pro-Western (and pro-democratic) secular forces, while marginalizing the Islamist faction. Instead, the U.S. will stand by while the Libyan government kills its people, and, therefore, help fertilize the soil in which a more brutal Islamist regime will grow and replace it. This is the historical record of what leftist American administrations do in foreign policy — and we are now witness to the tragic and morbid example in Libya.

This article was originally published here. 

By Tawfik Hamid

www.tawfikhamid.com

Despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars to improve its image, the US failed to significantly improve its image in the Muslim world. In June 2010 Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Centre, said the 'bad news' was that the Muslim public is more critical of US than in last year's study.

In Egypt the percentage of Muslims expressing confidence in Obama fell from 41 percent in 2009 to 31 percent in 2010, while in Turkey it fell from 33 percent to 23 percent during the same period of time. In the 2009 survey, only 13 percent of Pakistani Muslims were confident in Obama. That figure fell to 8 percent in 2010.

Overall, the US image fell in Egypt and Jordan. 33 percent of Egyptians held a positive view of the United States, dropping from 42 percent the year before, and in Jordan the image slumped from 31 percent to 26 percent.

For several years, the US has been trying to use different approaches and tactics to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world. These include USAID, American media channels such as Al-Hurra Radio, publishing magazines in Arabic such as Hi magazine, etc... None of these made a significant improvement of the US image.

This tells us that winning the hearts and minds of Muslims is not a matter of how much money is being spent for this target, but rather how this money is being spent. 

For example, the US now has a golden opportunity to win the hearts and minds of millions in the Muslim world if they utilized the Jan 25 Revolution in Egypt properly and in a timely fashion. The US MUST "strike while the iron is hot" and send a message to congratulate the Egyptian people for the success of their revolution and convey to them the best wishes from the American people to continue their path successfully to have freedom.

In the Egyptian culture it is practically meaningless to congratulate someone after a long time of their success. The US needs to congratulate the Egyptians in Arabic language via major advertisement pages in leading Egyptian newspapers that are seen and read by millions of Egyptians. Sending congratulations as verbal messages in the media is not as effective as having it printed in Arabic in such key Egyptian newspapers. The words MUST be carefully selected to avoid any misunderstanding.

The US needs to do this within 72 hours of the celebrations that will start in Egypt this Friday on February 18th, 2011. Timing is a crucial factor as sending these congratulations after a long period of time will make it loose its effectiveness. Publishing these congratulations in Egyptian Newspapers this Friday (Day of celebrating the Revolution), Saturday, or Sunday can create a very powerful positive psychological link to the US. 

If the US did this it can win the hearts and minds of millions in Egypt, weaken the negative perception of the US in the country, and open the gates for a new relationship with the Egyptians. Furthermore, these advertisements can limit the ability of people like Ahamdy Najad to ruin the image of the US in the Muslim world by claiming that the US is not happy with their revolution. Unfortunately, many in the Muslim world have tendency to believe such lies especially when they damage the image of the US.

Compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars that were spent by the US and were ineffective in winning the hearts and minds of the Muslims world, printing such congratulations "from the American people to the Egyptian people" in major newspapers all over Egypt will only cost few hundred thousand dollars and can be much more effective in improving US image in the Muslim world.

Because of the historical position of Egypt in the Arab world, the positive outcome of these congratulations in major Egyptian newspapers can go beyond the boarders of Egypt and affect many others in the Arab world. The US MUST utilize this historical opportunity in Egypt to direct its money more effectively to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world.  

As Egypt lurches towards the end of Hosni Mubarak's regime, one way or another - by "an orderly transition to democratic rule" (as Hillary Clinton delicately puts it), through violent overthrow or simply through the demise of the ailing 82-year-old president - much is unclear. One thing that should not be is that the Muslim Brotherhood is our enemy, and whatever role it plays in Egypt's future will be to our detriment.

Such clarity is readily available since the Brotherhood (MB or in Arabic, Ikhwan) has told us as much. Consider, for example, the mission statement for the MB found in one of its secret documents entitled "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America":

The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions.

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