http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-0110100352oct10.story?coll=chi%2Dnews%2Dhed

From the Chicago Tribune

Many fear wider war on Muslims

By E.A. Torriero Tribune staff reporter

October 10, 2001

CAIRO -- In working-class tea shops, in cafes where intellectuals debate and on street corners where common folk gather around television screens, there is hardly a true believer in America these days.

Listen to talk on the Arab streets and the U.S.-led bombing of Afghanistan is only the first stage in an escalating war against the Muslim world. From Beirut to Cairo, people don't believe Washington's explanation that the raids are aimed solely at alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden and his protectors.

They don't think the Bush administration has presented enough evidence to link bin Laden to the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Many are convinced the anti-terrorist campaign is a coverup for a mission to strengthen Israel and weaken their Palestinian brethren.

They are certain that in coming days other Arab nations, probably Iraq first, will be attacked, triggering a global conflict. The war fears intensified this week after U.S. officials informed the United Nations on Monday that strikes against terrorist sites could include targets outside Afghanistan.

"America is trying to rip the world in two," said 34-year-old salesman Ahmed el Latif, taking a few philosophical puffs on a water pipe at a downtown Cairo tea shop called the Flower of the Orchid.

"We cannot watch the bombs drop on Afghanistan and feel anything but that this is an attack on poor Muslims. How do you stop terror by killing poor people?"

The cynicism over the American-led strikes among hundreds of millions of Arabs is in sharp contrast to the patriotic feelings in the United States, where some opinion polls indicate that more than eight of 10 Americans favor the attacks on Afghanistan.

Widespread resentment

The brooding, anti-American resentment was not confined to devout Muslims, religious clerics or fanatical fundamentalists decrying Western values. It was heard in government offices, on university campuses, in cheap eateries and fancy restaurants and among Arabs--even Christian Arabs--who span the spectrum of beliefs and economic status, analysts say.

"I don't think Americans realize the depth of the feelings against the U.S. policies among the Arabs," said Milad Hanna, a Christian intellectual who wrote "Acceptance of the Other," a best-selling book in Egypt. "It is deeply ingrained in the Arab society, and the resentment is strong, very strong."

The unilateral sentiments are even more remarkable given that most Arab media are state-controlled, Arab governments have been mostly silent since the bombings began, and public protests are mostly banned. Still, common themes run deep among a public that even at the illiterate levels appears well-informed on U.S. policies.

"We believe what America is doing is hypocrisy," said Abdel Hadi, 50, a carpenter refurbishing a flat in Cairo's old downtown. "We are sorry for what happened to the people killed in America. But for America to kill is not the answer. Now they are terrorists."

Jittery U.S. citizens

For the third consecutive day, there were scattered anti-American protests across the Muslim world. Jittery U.S. citizens were keeping low profiles, not because of the demonstrations, which they know are kept in check by security forces, but because of the depth of anti-American feelings where they live and work.

"Arabs are always hospitable people, but I don't walk around with an `I Love America' shirt on my back," said one American travel agent who has lived in Cairo for more than 15 years. "I go about my business as quietly as I can."

As Arabs watch the bombing raids, there is rising solidarity with Afghan Muslims, and there are growing expectations that Iraq will be hit next. Arabs have been bitter for years at how American-led sanctions after the 1991 Persian Gulf war have hurt the Iraqi people.

"That's going to be disastrous," Mohammed Sayed Said, a leading Egyptian analyst who reflects the voice of Arab moderates, said of a possible attack on Iraq. "That's going to be the first stone toward a cultural conflagration."

So far, there appears little chance for Arab revolt. Arab regimes keep an iron-fisted control on their people. Trying to calm the public, Arab leaders have been deliberately low-key in their statements since the bombs began falling on Afghanistan on Sunday night.

Mubarak says little

In his first statement on the raids, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, appearing at a dedication of a bridge in the Sinai on Tuesday, said, "We support all measures taken by the United States to resist terrorism."

Increasingly, though, there is a disconnection between the discontent of the public and the governments trying to keep an edgy population in check. Since Monday, after the Bush administration signaled its willingness to expand the sphere of the attacks, there has been a furious diplomatic effort from Arab leaders to persuade the Americans to slow down and soften their rhetoric, Arab diplomats said.

"We demand that no Arab state is harmed," Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa told reporters after meeting with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Cairo this week.

Saudis' position

Saudi Arabia, which embraced and supported the allied effort against Iraq and its leader Sadaam Hussein in 1991, signaled Monday that it was against attacks against Iraq or other Arab nations.

"The United States should know that without Islamic support, the obstacles will be dangerous," said Saudi Arabia's official al-Riyadh newspaper, which reflects the government position.

The Bush administration is clamping a lid on information about the offensive's second stage. But Di'aa Rachwan, an expert on Islamic affairs at the al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, said Iraq may not be the only other target.

"What they are saying is very ambiguous, but it could include Iran and Sudan for their roles in allowing terrorism to thrive in the region," he said. "If that happens, it could lead to an out-of-control situation."

Longtime Egyptian diplomat Tasheen Bashir, a former ambassador to the United States, predicts that the Bush administration will tread carefully.

"I don't see them attacking Iraq anytime soon because all it would do is make the situation worse," he said. "The U.S. is not interested in antagonizing the Muslim people."

Foreign ministers from the 56-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference are to meet Wednesday in Qatar to formulate a Muslim stance against further moves by U.S.-led forces against terrorism. The meeting was requested by Iran, which has a growing influence on global Muslim responses to the U.S. actions.

"We urge that there will not be hastiness in the handling of this problem in a way that might harm Arabs and Muslims," Algeria's Foreign Affairs Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem said in Qatar.

Asked if other Muslim nations could be struck, Belkhadem said: "Yes, we fear that there could be [such a] deterioration."

Careful statement expected

The ministers, representing more than 1 billion Muslims, are not expected to condemn the Afghan strikes because there is little support among Arab regimes for the Taliban's harboring of bin Laden. But they are likely to carve a statement expressing their concerns for Afghan Muslims fleeing the bombings.

Arab leaders are torn between their support of international anti-terrorism measures and domestic allegiances. Arab countries such as Egypt cracked down on terrorism in the past 10 years through a brutal curb on civil rights including arrests, torture and executions. But as they support the U.S. efforts, Arab leaders also fear a backlash from bin Laden sympathizers that could lead to an Islamic uprising against moderate Arab regimes.

Anti-American feelings have grown especially deep in the last year as Arabs watched nightly newscasts of Israeli military clashes with Palestinians. Now Arabs are likening the strikes on Afghanistan to Israeli operations against Palestinians.

"We have watched the Palestinians suffer day after day, and now we must watch the Afghans suffer too," said Mustafa Mohammad, a schoolteacher. "I don't see how the Arabs will sit back and watch this without doing something."

-- Anonymous, October 10, 2001