The revolutions in the Arab world have changed the region. Thankfully, these courageous people-led movements have made Osama Bin Laden a bloody footnote in the history of the Arab people. Bin Laden claimed to represent Muslims in opposing foreign involvement in the Middle East. In his violent acts of war, he brought more bloodshed and foreign occupation to the region. The people movements of the Arab spring also clearly oppose foreign interventionism in their countries, but stand on a moral and non-violent platform that is secular, though rooted in a great pride about being Muslim and Arab.
Who will the United States support in this war of ideas in the Arab world?
Barack Obama has an amazing opportunity to end the occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine and make the United States extremely popular in the Muslim world. As Juan Cole wrote this morning:
If Obama can get us out of Iraq, and if he can use his good offices to keep the pressure on the Egyptian military to lighten up, and if he can support the likely UN declaration of a Palestinian state in September, the US will be in the most favorable position in the Arab world it has had since 1956. And he would go down in history as one of the great presidents. If he tries to stay in Iraq and he takes a stand against Palestine, he risks provoking further anti-American violence. He can be not just the president who killed Bin Laden, but the president who killed the pretexts for radical violence against the US. He can promote the waving of the American flag in major Arab cities. And that would be a defeat and humiliation for Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda more profound than any they could have dreamed.
Rashid Khalidi (the "terrorist" that palled around with Obama back in Chicago) wrote about the nature of the Arab Spring:
The Arab states have a long way to go to undo the terrible legacy of repression and stagnation and move toward democracy, the rule of law, social justice and dignity, which have been the universal demands of their peoples during this Arab spring. The term “dignity” involves a dual demand: first, for the dignity of the individual in the face of rulers who treat their subjects as without rights and beneath contempt. But there is also a demand for the collective dignity of proud states like Egypt, and of the Arabs as a people. This was the demand that nationalist leaders rode to power starting in the 1950s, as they targeted colonialism and neocolonialism. After that generation’s failures, they were replaced by dictators who provided the “stability” so prized by the West—stability purchased at the price of the dignity of the individual and the collective. It is this humiliation, by repressive rulers and vis-à-vis the outside world, that demonstrators from Rabat to Manama seek to eliminate. So far they have focused almost entirely on the root causes of their problems, which are largely internal. There has been little or no emphasis on foreign policy, no visible anti-Western feeling and limited mention of Israel or Palestine.
There is great peril in ignoring this demand for collective dignity, whether it relates to the patronizing way the United States has long treated the region or the casual dismissal of the beliefs of most Arabs that justice has not been and is not being done to the Palestinians. If the people of the Arab world are fortunate in achieving democratic transitions, and can begin to confront the many deep problems their societies face, it is vital that a new Arab world, born of a struggle for freedom, social justice and dignity, be treated with the respect it deserves, and that for the first time in decades it is beginning to earn.
It is time for Obama to come out fighting for the Arab spring and cease our military operations and support of oppressive regimes in the region. To do otherwise simply puts us on the same page as al-Qaeda.