Ten Years That Have Changed the World

The Israelis are right when they say that peace with the Palestinians will not solve any of the problems that divide the Muslims. Such a peace, however, will change the face of the West in the eyes of the Arab world and deprive the fanatics of what is often their reason for being.

In the current context of the Arab revolutions, the 10th anniversary of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 against the World Trade Center towers deserves special consideration. This is because the event was a historical turning point which caused a series of wars, behaviors and situations that have changed the world. The U.S. was attacked that day on their own soil, and they discovered that they no longer possess the global dominance that they achieved when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. In addition, Americans realized that they now faced an unprecedented type of war that they were not at all prepared for.

The audacity, imagination and extensive preparation that went into the attacks involved highly sophisticated logistics that the attackers had possessed for a long time. Therefore, everything was brutally called into question, including the executive’s ability to interpret information provided by the CIA, whose leaders now say that they knew all about al-Qaida’s intentions to carry out a spectacular feat.

What interests me most here is that the explosive weapon was used in the name of a religion, Islam, against the superpower that embodies the West. I noticed that ever since the attacks and during the 20th century, we had been subjected to ideologies that functioned as religions. We will now have to deal with religions that function as ideologies. I will go as far as to say that today, Islam is one of the few, if not the only, ideologies of the early 21st century. It is in the name of Islam that strategists have claimed to get to the first stage in a war of civilizations as defined by Samuel Huntington’s: It is not a local conflict or it is not a conflict of power; it is a conflict of values.

The attacks have definitely allowed the U.S. to verify and sometimes discover the depth and scope of U.S. citizens’ sense of belonging to their nation. The black, Muslim, Latin American, and even Muslim minorities have expressed a patriotism that has impressed the world. It was the only true and great victory of this society whose bond is not a common history, but simply respect for the Constitution. Nevertheless, this nation that is so united has given rise to anti-imperialist sentiments that have resulted in a stubborn and organized hatred towards the entire West.

All Westerners, wherever they were, felt affected by 9/11 and expressed their fervent solidarity with the American people. But they have refused to see that practically all Muslims, whether they lived in the Arab states or in the West, felt an intense sense of pride. It was the first time that secular humiliation inflicted by the “imperialists” was avenged. The heroes of Islam were finally able to accomplish what the legendary Fidel Castro managed to do against the “gringos.” In any case, all Muslims in the U.S. or the West more or less became suspicious, and the separation of civilizations had truly began.

In 1993, when Saddam Hussein annexed Kuwait, the Americans, notably at the request of Saudi Arabia and Israel, inflicted merciless punishment on Iraq with the consent of all UN members except Cuba. This is how George H.W. Bush showed that the U.S. was the world’s police after the implosion of the Soviet Union. George W. Bush thought of nothing other than regaining this privilege that, eight years later, the perpetrators of the Manhattan attacks had appeared to destroy. With Sharon as their leader, the Israelis realized this straight away. This crusade against terrorism belongs to the Israelis. We can no longer refuse them anything. They led Bush to believe that the Palestinian leader Arafat, who has repudiated the 9/11 attacks, is ranked among the accomplices of terrorism. By agreeing to make Israel’s security a prime objective of its foreign policy, the U.S. will poison all relations between the Arab world and the West.

It is within this alarming situation that a young American biracial man who does not yet know that he will become president of the U.S. conceived of the project to put an end to the war of civilizations and to get rid of the image of superiority and arrogance that the U.S. shows to the world, particularly to Arabs and Muslims. Barack Obama put forth this thesis in a historic speech that he delivered in Cairo. Poorly informed by his staff, which included Jews and even Israelis, Obama thought he could count on Israel to help change the face of the West by becoming allies with the Muslims who were the main victims of terrorism and by achieving a just peace with the Palestinians. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu abruptly refused to consider such a strategy, which would have even ensured the salvation of Israel. He ridiculed Obama publicly, was cheered by Congress in Washington and forced the U.S. president to surrender. History will be harsh on the Israeli leaders for their stubbornness in refusing peace.

Where are we today? Why have radical Islamists who have not managed to get to the second stage in their clash of civilizations? There are two main reasons. The first is that division is what characterizes the history of Islam and the Arabs. There were nearly 1 million deaths in the war between Iraq and Iran and 150,000 during the civil war in Algeria. This is the story of a curse that has been around ever since the heirs of the prophet began killing each other.

The second reason is that Islam does not reunite Islamic countries. Instead, it divides them, and the desire for democracy that characterizes the current Arab Spring involves a renunciation of nihilistic terrorism. In any case, Obama’s analysis remains irrefutable: It depends largely on the West to end the war of civilizations.