IT SHOULD not come as a surprise, not even to the American makers of public policy, that the United States is now deeply unpopular in the Muslim world. Survey after survey reveal the toll taken by recent policies and approaches aimed at various parts of the Muslim world.

That sentiment about America has changed so dramatically over the last few years – especially since 9/11 – is in itself quite an achievement, if “achievement” is the right word to describe what has happened.

In a book published three years ago, an Arab-American scholar wrote how America was perceived in the Middle East not too long ago. This is what Rashid Khalidi said in his 2004 book, Resurrecting Empire: “Unlike Britain and France, liberal democratic powers at home that were hated, illiberal colonisers in the Middle East and unlike the autocratic, imperialist, expansionist empires of Austro-Hungary and Russia, the United States had never tried to impose its will on the peoples of the region or to occupy or colonise them. In keeping with the admonitions of the founding fathers to avoid ‘entangling alliances’ and to beware of the dangers to the republic at home of adventures with empire abroad, American leaders long eschewed involvement in the imperialistic machinations of the European powers in this and other parts of the globe.” A dramatic change has occurred since those attitudes were formed and those policies were adopted. America is now thoroughly entangled in all over the globe, particularly in the Muslim world.

The meddling with the Muslim world by America began around the middle of the 20th century but it was not the product of actions taken unilaterally. When President Franklin Roosevelt met King Abdul Aziz, the founding monarch of Saudi Arabia, he did so to serve not only his own country’s interests but also that of the fledgling state in the Arabian desert.

What followed was a marriage of convenience, when the CIA intervened in 1956 in Iran to save that country from a popular revolution by removing Mohammed Mossadeq, the highly erratic prime minister, it did so to support powerful domestic interests who were unhappy with the moves of the prime minister.

When in the early 1960s, Washington set up a military base near Peshawar to watch what was going on in the Soviet Union, it did so at the invitation of President Ayub Khan. It also helped with the modernisation of the Pakistani military hoping that it would serve as a bulwark against the possible expansionist designs of the communist power to the north. When it chose to intervene in a big way in Afghanistan in the 1980s to expel the occupying Soviet forces it did so at the pleasure of many Muslim states, most importantly Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

When in 1991 it launched a war in the Gulf to push back Iraq from Kuwait, it had the entire Muslim world supporting its efforts. And when it launched a war on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan after 9/11 it did so after determining that the Al Qaeda, hosted by the Taliban in Afghanistan, were behind the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in New York and Washington. It was America’s right to punish those who had perpetrated that evil act.

All these were positive moves that got America involved in many parts of the Muslim world to promote a set of policies that were not regarded as abhorrent by the Muslim people. In 1956, by putting pressure on Britain and France to give up the attempt to reseize the Suez Canal nationalised by Egypt’s President Gamal Abdul Nasser, the US showed that it could act independently of Israeli interests. (That is today at best a remote possibility). By strictly remaining neutral in the long enduring India-Pakistan dispute over Kashmir, Washington showed remarkable sensitivity towards the aspirations of a Muslim population that considered itself to have been wrongly subjected to foreign occupation.

There was enough in this record of behaviour for the Muslims to regard the United States as a benign superpower. Washington oriented its foreign policy not to advance simply its own perceived interests. It showed considerable empathy with the interests of the people it dealt with. That policy stance changed quite remarkably after 9/11.

That happened in part because the White House was now occupied by a man who was utterly insensitive to the wishes and sensitivities of other people and states around the world. Over the last half a dozen years, America led by President George W. Bush has taken positions that have thoroughly alienated the Muslim people all over the world. Not only that, his policies have created a mindset that affects even those who oppose him on Iraq. Even they are prepared to pursue policies that will raise more grief in the Muslim world. When we look at the past six years we can spot many mistakes that have been committed or were on the way to being made which will have far reaching consequences for America’s relations with the Muslim world.

I will start this discussion by not picking on the most obvious mistakes – those made in Afghanistan and Iraq, and those concerning the handling of relations with Muslims who reside in the United States. Official America’s treatment of its own Muslim population is taking place in an environment which permits open and insensitive criticism of Muslims, their religious practices and their history.

I will begin instead by discussing the impact of a non-binding resolution that is likely to be passed in the House of Representatives in the US Congress concerning the treatment of Armenians by the Young Turks in the early part of the 20th century. This move matters since it will seriously alienate one of the few remaining allies the United States has in the Muslim world.

What is prompting this motion is the presence of large communities of Armenian voters in a few districts represented by some powerful people in the Democrat-controlled US Congress. There are reported to be about 1.4 million people of Armenian origin resident in the United States. The community’s average income is more than $100,000 which amounts to a total of $140 billion, more than Pakistan’s GDP. Some of these people are billionaires, many of whom have friends in the higher echelons of the American political community. They also work closely with the community of Greek-Americans, another powerful voting bloc in the United States.

The Greeks and Turks are a bit like the Indians and Pakistanis with long memories of the wrongs done by one people to the other. Ethnic politics resonate in the United States and the Armenians feel that they now have the opportunity to strike at the Turks.

Representative Adam Schiff from California, who has 70,000 to 80,000 ethnic Armenians in his district, is sponsoring the Armenian Genocide Resolution. The draft has a preamble of 30 paragraphs that detail the events in and around 1915 when, according to Armenian accounts, 1.5 million people belonging to their religion and ethnic group were killed and many more millions were pushed out of the country into what is today’s Armenia.

The Turks contest this description of what really happened, claiming that the Armenians tell only one part of their story, one highly biased against Turkey. At the time these events occurred, the Ottoman empire was collapsing under the weight of an all-out onslaught by the European powers who were assisted by a number of Arabs who resented the rule over them by the Turks.

Why pass such a resolution? One answer comes from Jackson Diehl of The Washington Post. “Here is a debate that could occur only in Washington – a bizarre mix of frivolity and moral seriousness, of constituent pandering, far-flung history and front-line foreign policy. And that’s just on the American side – in Turkey there is the painful struggle of a deeply nationalist society to come to terms with its past, and in the process become more of the western democracy it wants to be.”

If the new Congress succeeds in its efforts, there will be terrible consequences for Turkish-Armenian relations. The leadership at the Hill does not probably recognise that Pakistan and Turkey are two non-Arab Muslim countries that will have a significant impact on how the Muslim world perceive America’s attitude towards it.

How will Turkey react? Once again, to quote from Diehl: “To begin with, Turkey’s powerful military has been hinting that US access to the Incirlik air base, which plays a key role in Iraq and Afghanistan, could be restricted.” Foreign Minister Abdullah “warned that a nationalist tidal wave could sweep Turkey and force the government to downgrade its cooperation with the United States, which needs Turkey’s help this year to stabilise Iraq and contain Iran. Candidates in upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections could compete in their anti-American elections.”In discussing the next American mistake, I can be brief since it was the subject of two articles that appeared in this space in the previous two weeks. My reference is to the way Washington’s policymakers are not paying much attention to history – not old history, but recent history. By pushing Islamabad to move forcefully against the Pashtun population in the country’s tribal belt, and threatening punitive actions against Pakistan if the country’s leaders fail to act, America is committing not one but two mistakes. It used the Pressler Amendment in 1989 to stop the flow of aid to Pakistan when Islamabad persisted with efforts to develop a nuclear bomb.

While Pakistan’s quest for nuclear weapons was not inhibited by that action, a situation was created that distanced the Pakistani elite – both civilian and military elements in it – from the United States.

By suggesting that there is the possibility that a new amendment may be attached to some bill that would require the American president to certify that Pakistan was fully toeing Washington’s line in the latter’s war against terrorism, the US leadership is inviting a “we told you so” response from those in Pakistan who are already weary of America.

That is what a number of people who opposed General Pervez Musharraf’s willingness to support America after 9/11 said and wrote. The fear was expressed that once Washington’s bidding was done – or not done exactly according to America’s wishes – it would be willing, once again, to pull the rug.

There is already a strong anti-American sentiment in Pakistan. It is reflected not only in what is said in Friday sermons by the clergy but also apparent in what is written by a number of liberal commentators in the columns of the country’s newspapers.

The American political system is not structured to allow the pursuit of a well thought out strategy the country should pursue towards the rest of the world. There are just too many people active in the field to be brought under one tent. When Congress is dominated by a party different from the one that has the president in the White House, a coordinated response to the world’s problems and challenges becomes even more difficult.

That is the situation at this time. America has made many mistakes in the Muslim world since 9/11. Its evolving attitude towards two large non-Arab Muslim counties – Pakistan and Turkey – are just two of these. There are many more. I will discuss these off and on in the coming weeks.

IT TOOK 1,000 years for the world GDP to double during the millennium ending at the close of the 18th century. The knowledge and skills generated by the Renaissance joined forces with social and political reformation and ushered in the Industrial Revolution at this time.

That made it possible for mankind to take a quantum leap and put itself on a trajectory of rapid and sustained growth in the area of wealth and power, despite setbacks caused by wars, droughts, epidemics and other natural and man-made disasters.

Consequently, the world GDP doubled in only 100 years during the 19th century, the first century after the Industrial Revolution. It quadrupled during the 1900s as the human race further increased its capabilities to shape its destiny. And now, in the 21st century, the world GDP is slated to jump by eight times from $25 trillion to over $200 trillion, even when the population will increase to 10 billion by the end of century. This century will also feed and clothe this population by using the same amount of land resources now being consumed and raise the per capita GDP to $20,000.

The landmass has not increased, nor have humans discovered new oceans or fertile planets. What they have discovered, however, are tools to multiply their capabilities to control the environment and make the same set of resources renewable and capable of producing many times more wealth and power than has ever been possible before.

Capabilities are being acquired that are several times more powerful than of those still living in pre-industrial, mediaeval societies. These new capabilities are the miracles of minds trained not only in high quality education and skills but also nurtured in cultural and political traditions that encourage rational and incremental approaches to the acquisition of knowledge and discovering new and better ways of addressing challenges of an ever-changing environment.

Sadly, this new breed of people is not evenly spread around the world and the two big areas missing out in this race are Africa and the greater part of the OIC countries.

Take a look at this paradox. A list of the some of the poorest and least developed countries in the world includes Angola, Congo, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and others in Africa which are among the countries that are the richest in terms of natural resources and mineral wealth like gold, diamonds and oil.

On the other hand, included among the richest countries in the world are Luxembourg, Iceland, Switzerland, Japan and Singapore that occupy territories with almost zero natural resources but that have nevertheless achieved among the highest standards of living.

The paradox can be explained by the difference in the quality of human resources where one set of people has been able to create resources even where none existed while the other has remained incapable of benefiting even when sitting atop some of the richest endowments of nature.

A renewable resource is understood as any natural resource that is regenerated at a rate faster than the rate at which it is depleted. This means that non-renewable resources could be turned into renewable resources if humans had developed capabilities to manage these intelligently. Conversely, poor minds and malgovernance could turn assets into liabilities and renewable resources into non-renewable resources thus shortening the stream of benefits.

This was also confirmed by the sagacious former prime minister of Singapore, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, while explaining to this writer how he took his country from the Third World to the first. “We created assets where none existed,” Lee said, “We did not have even our own water to drink in Singapore.”

It is the quality of human mind – its brainpower – that creates new assets and converts non-renewable into renewable resources thus stretching their benefits over long periods of time. Developing this quality of brainpower is not merely a function of quality education but also of the cultural and political environment which accepts that knowledge is not something dogmatically given but acquired through rational and incremental processes of development of the mind through the exercise of reason.

Brainpower works on the principle of “use-it-or-lose-it” since the brain would not waste energy in developing and sustaining capabilities that are not utilised by humans. If brain cells fail to receive inputs of knowledge, then their processes do not function and the brain atrophies.

Therefore, if cultural and political barriers to the development of enquiring and searching minds are not removed, brainpower would weaken and become incapable of addressing current or future challenges faced by societies, not withstanding the accumulation of formal diplomas.

In one of the panel discussions of the World Economic Forum at Davos, this writer was introduced to Mr Shimon Peres, then foreign minister of Israel. On learning that I came from Pakistan, the first thing he marvelled at was the large population of Pakistan, wondering what could not be achieved with such a huge human resource.

Coming from someone nurtured in the long Jewish tradition of individual excellence that has enabled the Jewish people to influence and even overwhelm those more numerous than themselves, this was not a surprising observation, although a very insightful one indeed.

But people cannot be turned from liabilities into assets in societies where half the population can’t even read or write, where most of the remaining have no access to quality education and skill development, and where most are faced with almost insurmountable cultural and political barriers on their way to developing their minds into renewable resources of wealth and power.

In Unesco’s Education for all report for 2007, Pakistan ranks second among the countries of the world where most of the children are left out of school. Our enrolment is less than 80 per cent while the dropout levels are high which puts Pakistan almost at the bottom of the global picture.

But accessing education for all is not handicapped by issues of poverty or economic resources. Nor is the development of societies merely a function of economic factors. Cultural and political barriers to development are critical and can derail and disfigure the entire development phenomenon, a bitter fact most Pakistanis are well aware of.

A hypothetical market economy with no cultural or political barriers to development does not exist in the real world nor has it existed anywhere before. Unless fairly managed, such barriers lay waste the entire potential of human resources of a country and keep holding people as liabilities rather than turning them into assets and sources of wealth and power.

Knowledge has surpassed machines as the creator of value and the driving force behind the world economy. The gap between those that are still mired in the social and political shackles of the dark ages and those that are using their knowledge and skills to successfully take on modern-day challenges is growing.

Often in history, the power of educated and trained minds and the skills and organisation abilities of their possessors have surpassed and succeeded the larger numbers even humbling them into colonisation. Without the removal of social and cultural barriers, developing rational and probing minds that are renewable resources for society is not possible. And without that brainpower, the future of such societies may remain at the same level as in the past.

The writer is a former head of Board of Investment and federal secretary.
Email: smshah@alum.mit.edu

FOR decades, Africa has pleaded in vain for a comprehensive engagement from the West on the basis of shared interests, particularly in the economic arena. But the new engagement the continent has been offered, in the form of a military US command, is the last thing the world's most impoverished continent needs.

The decision to establish Africom, as the command will be known, reflects the Bush administration's primary reliance on the use of force to pursue its strategic interests. Among the key goals for the new command, for example, is the assurance of oil imports from Africa, which have assumed much greater importance given the hostility to the US presence in the Middle East.

China has similar energy needs, but how differently it is pursuing them. When George Bush announced Africom's creation last month, the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, was touring eight African countries to negotiate oil-related deals and announcing multibillion-dollar aid agreements. Many commentators voiced legitimate concerns about China's intentions; none have been voiced about Africom in the major western media.

Central to Africom's mission will be tracking and crushing the growing terrorist hot spots in the vast, neglected regions with large Muslim populations, from the Horn of Africa to the Atlantic Ocean. Bush described the new military command as a vehicle to "promote our common goals of development, health, education and economic growth". Is that what huge military bases accomplish for countries whose populations are seething with anger? Hardly.

Africom will instead militarise American relations with Africa, and militarise numerous African countries. It will also tilt these countries' policies towards the use of force. And it will inflame Muslim passions and create more angry militants opposed to a US military presence in their country or region. The command's establishment will also provide the US with new bases from which to project force into the oil-providing Middle East.

The misguided reliance on force is shown by the disastrous results of the US forcibly toppling the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) in Somalia with the muscle of the Ethiopian army. In a smaller-scale reprise of the Iraq catastrophe, the military victory in January was swift, but the plan to install a client regime has quickly gone awry and a fierce insurgency is already under way.

The relative peace the ICU had brought to Somalia has been shattered, and the arrival of an African Union force mandated by the UN security council will further exacerbate and internationalise this crisis. In Iraq's case, both the UN and the region resisted sanctioning a multinational occupying force, but it's much easier to get your way over Africa, with the continent too weak to resist US dictates.

The Somalia war also made a hitherto stable Kenya a frontline state in the "war on terror" after it was pressured by the US to allow its territory to be used by American forces, and also because it handed over genuine refugees and suspected ICU supporters and fighters to Somalia, where they faced torture and death.

The kidnapping of Britons in Ethiopia may be a consequence of the exacerbated pressures that confront Addis Ababa, already beset by revolts against its ruthless repression of minorities.

Once again, Bush has embarked on an ostensibly legitimate mission –- greater security for America and Africa, and fighting terrorism –- with methods that will accomplish the opposite. After the horrors of Iraq and Afghanistan, it is madness to believe that military might can curb terrorism unless its political and social causes are addressed. — Dawn/Guardian Service