Even at the most cynical level -- realpolitik -- the US's recent use of cruise missiles to catch the attention of Islamic fundamentalists was wrongheaded, being "worse than a crime, a blunder."
There was a good article in today's New York Times, "A Moderate Thinks US Shot Itself in the Foot," by Jane Perlez. I post an excerpt below:
KHARTOUM, Sudan -- A normally serene scholar of Islam named Abdulrahman Abuzayd, who believes passionately in the wisdom of his religion and its values, is furious at the United States.
He is no friend of the National Islamic Front's government in Sudan. Indeed, two years ago, it burned his office at the university he led and forced him to step down.
He also is unhappy that the government invited Osama bin Laden, considered a top financier of terrorism by the United States, to take refuge in his homeland.
But sending cruise missiles, he says, is no way to deal with extremists -- and no way to deal with a government that may or may not have allowed a factory to make a compound of a nerve gas.
"As a Sudanese I'm mad," said Abuzayd, as he sat on his veranda, which looks over the urban landscape of low-slung, khaki-colored homes, a sun-bleached dusty road and an occasional wandering goat. "OK, we have problems with this regime. But we solve them ourselves. Now the Americans have come and given it a big shot in the arm."
He has the same concern about bin Laden, whose image -- with a long black beard and varying styles of headgear -- is now flashed around the world. "The Americans have suddenly created a Muslim hero out of him, whereas last week he was considered a fanatic nut," Abuzayd said. "Now he is a hero in Saudi Arabia, in Islamabad, in Cairo, in all capitals of the Muslim world."
The United States has made serious missteps, he said, first by failing to convince the Muslim world that bin Laden was responsible for the bombings of American embassies in East Africa and then by attacking Afghanistan and the Sudan.
"By its strikes in Afghanistan and here, America did not eliminate terrorism," Abuzayd said. "This is not terrorism -- this is a resurging Muslim world. You don't deal with it with cruise missiles, you discuss it. You don't rub the entire Muslim world's nose in the dirt and make it kneel."
Carl Remick