US: The Closure ofEmbassies and Its Context

One day after the United States warned its citizens about the dangers of traveling to the Middle East and northern Africa and, with France, Britain and Germnay’s support, ordered the closure of a dozen embassies and consulates in those regions, Interpol issued a global alert about the possibility of terrorist attacks against western targets.

The revival of American and western fear and paranoia has a cyclical component: the recent escape of hundreds of prisoners — many of them charged with terrorism — from prisons in Iraq, Libya and Pakistan, with the probable support of al-Qaida. However, expressions of anti-American resentment that extend to countries and regions such as those mentioned converge with much deeper and diverse factors.

The first is the persistence of an aggressive, interventionist, militaristic and predatory foreign policy in Washington that worsened during the administrations of George W. Bush, after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. After these events, the Texas politician took his country on a military crusade in the name of justice that resulted in the devastation of two nations, Iraq and Afghanistan, and the compounding of insecurity and human rights violations in the world. The same policy continued in Pakistan, when the U.S. suspected that al-Qaida, the organization credited with the attacks of 9/11, operated north of that territory. The U.S. also recently reproduced this in Libya, with the supposed aim of “liberating” the country from the Muammar Gadhafi regime.

The invariable result of that policy has not been the pacification of the invaded and devastated nations but the multiplication and perpetuation of violence and a deepening of the anti-American and anti-West sentiments in these regions.

The common double standard of the Washington government in its treatment of various fundamentalists must be noted. In contrast to the persecution and the crusade launched by the White House against Islamic fundamentalism, the U.S. government has been characterized by its kindness to those who hold a wide influence on the design and implementation of Israel’s military policy.

Moreover, the growth and operation of Islamic fundamentalist organizations meant to threaten U.S. and western targets is but a consequence of the collapse of institutional political alternatives, secular and religious, such as those that at the time represented the pan-Arab Baath party, the regimes arising from national liberation processes of the ’60s and ’70s, and, in addition, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which, after coming to power through a democratic process, was overthrown by means of a coup recently described by Washington as a “restoration of democracy.” This collapse is explained by the action of local movements of discontent, as well as by the diplomatic and military interference of the United States.

The attacks on American embassies or any other country are reprehensible and undesirable because they undermine the immunity of diplomatic missions in the world and position themselves, consequently, as a factor dangerous to the already fragile international order. However, by basic congruence on par with the preventive measures that have been implemented, Washington and its allies would have to correct for the attitude and inertia that have led to the development of this climate of constant threats and violence.