Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 2006, pages 26-27

Arab Press Review

“Evil Is as Evil Does”: Devils, Diplomacy And the Dark Ages

By Peter C. Valenti

IT COULD BE said that not since Soviet President Nikita Khruschev took off his shoe and banged it on his desk during a 1960 debate at the U.N. General Assembly has the level of rancor and animosity among world leaders been as high as it is today. Moreover, the despair with which many around the world regard the current state of international affairs seems to be directly linked to the new political climate fostered during the presidency of George W. Bush.

While political commentators, and the general public, in the Middle East have long felt that U.S. foreign policies in the region have belied its supposed role as an “honest broker,” the past few years have enhanced this perception exponentially. Indeed, the past months of crises, diplomatic gaffes and sordid politics signal an impasse for which there seems to be no corrective.

The catalyst for a new round of rumination in the Arab press was the Sept. 19 appearance of both Bush and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the U.N., where each delivered a speech taking jabs at the other, followed the next day by the surprising speech of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who referred to Bush as “the Devil.” The fact that Chavez’s comments were met with laughter indicates that many in the world privately believe what Chavez expressed openly.

In their remarks, Bush, Ahmadinejad and Chavez all challenged the U.N. and its effectiveness as an international body. They spoke, moreover, during a period of global tension caused by a speech given by Pope Benedict XVI in Germany on Sept. 12 that ostensibly was about faith and reason but which also included what many people saw as a disingenuous attack on Islam.

Interestingly, the commonality in these rhetoric wars is the concept of “evil”—which, of course, Bush famously raised with his “Axis of Evil” characterization. Unhappily, this recourse to the use of “evil” as an explanatory factor is evidence of a world polarized by ideologies, and hence a rupture of diplomatic norms. 

Pope Benedict and the Question of Evil

In his speech at the University of Regensburg, the pope was trying to suggest that Christianity has a strong claim to reason. In a strange apposition to his claims, he quoted Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologos: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

It is quite interesting that the pope reached back to the writings of an Orthodox Christian Byzantine emperor, especially one of this lineage. The so-called “Byzantines,” who actually (and correctly) considered themselves the last surviving remnant of the Roman Empire, and thus Romans, were excommunicated en masse by the Roman Catholic Church in 1054. Catholic opinion of the unworthiness, indeed, heretical views of the Orthodox underscored the sacking and conquest of Constantinople in 1204 in the form of the Fourth Crusade. Manuel II’s family, the Palaiologoi, gained the throne only when they had recaptured Constantinople from the occupying (Catholic) Crusaders in 1261.

In a Sept. 20 editorial, Egypt’s al-Ahram newspaper expressed the common Muslim reaction. The pope’s speech ultimately was not about “freedom of speech and opinion,” the paper maintained, “because what specifically occurred was the leveling of accusations and insults toward Islam and its prophet and Islamic history. This wasn’t a matter of debate and dialogue, or even opinion, but instead resembled the conclusive conviction that Prophet Muhammad didn’t come except by evil and violence.”

Reacting to the international outcry to his speech, the pope later wrote an apology in which he claimed it “was and is an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue.” Yet, argued Sawsan al-Abtah in the Sept. 21 edition of Saudi Arabia’s Asharq al-Awsat, the facts don’t countenance this explanation. Despite the Vatican’s subsequent pointing to the Emperor Manuel, and not the pope, as the holder of the views expressed, the text of the speech is quite clear, she noted, since the pope “did not say at any moment [in the speech] that he opposed [Manuel’s] ideas or that he even questioned them.”

In this new age, where perceptions of conflicting civilizations can be more important than reality, Pope Benedict seemed to be placing Christianity in a confrontation with Islam, al-Abtah opined. Unfortunately, she added, the Church seems to have “entered a new historical stage.”

In other words, this is not the age of Pope John Paul II. 

A Moribund Diplomacy

In a series of recent articles, the United Arab Emirates newspaper al-Bayan traced the relevant themes and issues of this rhetorical war, expressing as well a near nihilistic view of international diplomacy. Dr. Muhammad Salman al-‘Aboodi best captured this sense of despair in his Sept. 24 column, in which he wrote that we now find ourselves in a world where the “minds of some world leaders [hold] ideas that amount to a level of naïve innocence while their conduct reveals an infantile psychology. In short, the world in the third millenium is ruled by children…”

Not mincing words, Al-‘Aboodi continued: “The…‘quarrel’ between Mr. George Bush, president of the U.S. (who presides over a nation of nearly 300 million human beings), and Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of the Islamic Republic of Iran (who rules more than 66 million people)…resembles to a great extent the kinds of quarrels that happen during childhood.”

Bush’s speech can also be seen as part of an ongoing attempt to appeal to moderate Muslims and key Muslim nations, particularly Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. As a form of quid pro quo, he insinuated that his administration will revive Saudi King Abdullah’s long-languishing peace proposal to Israel, accepted by the Arab League in 2002.

Since the U.S. administration has caused such irrevocable damage to its image, however, its message often falls on deaf ears. In an Oct. 3 editorial, the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi characterized Bush’s speech as a cynical ploy to gain “Arab and Islamic cover for any attack the USA is resolved to launch against ‘The Axis of Evil,’ which includes, according to American understanding, Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas.

“Every time the U.S. plans to launch a war in the region against an Arab or Islamic nation,” the editorial continued, “it resorts to the trick of reviving the peace process, and issuing optimistic statements in this regard. It did this when it launched its first war against Iraq in 1991, and second in 2003, and the war on Afghanistan in October 2001.”

Writing in the Sept. 22 al-Bayan, Ahmad ‘Umarabi described Bush’s demeanor as that of a preacher: “Parts of his speech were directed to Arab and Muslim peoples in a manner as if America is the trailblazer of liberation in this day and age.” ‘Umarabi’s sentiments mirrored Chavez’s comment that Bush “came [to the U.N.] talking as if he owned the world.”

“It is quite interesting,” ‘Umarabi went on to point out, “that whereas the American president directed his ‘liberational’ message to the Iranian people, in which he encouraged and goaded revolution against their government, he did not direct a similar ‘liberational’ message to the Palestinian people, encouraging them against Israel.”

‘Umarabi concluded by noting that Bush addressed ”the same organization which issued [Security Council] Resolution 242, which considers Israel an occupying power and consequently demands the withdrawal from Arab lands. This resolution until today has not been implemented because of Israeli insolence toward it, with the everlasting support from a series of American presidents, among whom George Bush will not be the last.”

The U.N.: Merely a Tool?

Indeed, while observers in the U.S. are long aware of the Bush administration’s hostility to the U.N., currently personified by Ambassador John Bolton, Venezuelan President Chavez also criticized the world body, castigating the General Assembly as “merely a deliberative organ.”

Ironically, as critical as most Arab commentators are of the White House and its foreign policies, they seem to agree implicitly with the subtext of the Bush administration’s rhetorical and actual challenge to the efficacy of the U.N—with the Security Council being the main target of critique. Again, al-‘Aboodi zeroed in on the problem: “The U.N. fell under the domination of the decisions of the five great powers,” he wrote, “or to put it more accurately, the one great power. These powers do not see in the mirror of the Security Council [anything] other than their own image, and the image of their own interests. And it is as if other nations don’t [even] have the right of existence.”

Expressing a frustration long felt by Arabs, Chavez himself commented: “Let’s be honest. The U.N. system born after World War II collapsed. It’s worthless.”

Agreed Said Zahran in the Sept. 21 al-Bayan: “It is clear to everyone that the U.N. has entered a stage of senility…It has not effected any change worth mentioning on the framework of the organization that would be suited to the new world after the collapse of the Communist bloc and the breakup of the Soviet Union.

“The issues of our world will not be straightened out,” Zahran maintained, “except by a fundamental reform of the international organization, ending the monopoly of the unipolar power, and by the implementation of international resolutions.”

Until then, he lamented, it will remain “the United Nations of America.”

Iran and Israel: The Double Standard

Given the Bush administration’s intense scrutiny of Iran’s nuclear program, moreover, it is only logical for observers to detect a double standard. In his speech to the General Assembly, Ahmadinejad himself noted: “The question needs to be asked: if the governments of the United States or the United Kingdom, who are permanent members of the Security Council, commit aggression, occupation and violation of international law, which of the organs of the U.N. can take them to account? Can a Council in which they are privileged members address their violations?”

Elaborating on his theme of U.S. dominance of the U.N., al-Bayan’s Zahlan pointed out: “The Israeli nuclear arsenal, which amounts to greater than 300 warheads…continues to remain far from any U.N. intervention and its special investigators, nor is it open to serious debate in the Security Council, thanks to the hegemony of the single American pole.”

Using language reminiscent of Chavez’s accusations, al-‘Aboodi wrote: “The latest Lebanon war confirmed the extent of the superficiality of this Council. Its members placed the crimes of Israel—which bombed Lebanon with various kinds of internationally prohibited bombs—in the category of legitimate self-defense.”

In its Sept. 21 editorial, al-Bayan observed that, despite Bush’s call for “advanc[ing] the high ideals” of the U.N., the White House has proven its disregard for both the institution and its ideals. “The list is a long one: from Palestine to Iraq, to ending the latest Israeli aggression against Lebanon. Resolutions issued against Israel, which were nullified due to American protection, number in the dozens. And this number is matched by those resolutions shot down by the American veto. Regarding Iraq,” the paper went on to allege, the U.S. “pole-vaulted over the U.N. and marginalized it.”

Peter C. Valenti, a free-lance writer and translator, teaches Islam and modern Middle East history at New York’s New School University.

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