in search of Arab moderates

I heartily support the idea of the United States trying to mobilize Arab and Muslim moderates against extremists.  But here's the thing:  if you go looking for "Arab moderates" and you mainly find them in the palaces of pro-American dictators, odds are you aren't looking in the right place.  Maybe the overwhelming majority of actual moderate voices in the region are just too busy denouncing your policies and complaining about how you've spent the last five years undermining their position to meet up with you.    Listening to Bush and Rice talking about Arab moderates, I can only think of the immortal Inigo Montoya: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Comments

[Ghurab al-Bain]

You might find at least some of the Arab moderates in the prisons of "pro-American Arab dictators", rather than in their palaces.

[aardvark]

All too true.

[Badger]

Very true, just as it was back in 03 and 04 when you first pointed this out.

More to the point, though, is that this particular trip, and this particular set of discussions, are aimed at setting up a new "moderates versus extremists" story-line, the important new point being that the Arab regimes are being asked to line up shoulder to shoulder with Israel in the "moderate" ranks, and this in turn requires that they be provided with some kind of cover vis-a-vis their populations on the Palestine issue. Joseph Samaha, in the two-part series you have referred to, pokes fun at this new initiative, and notes it will be fun to watch the official Arab media line up and say peace in Palestine is upon us, if only we assist the US in the eradication of extremists. I summarize what he said on my humble blog under "The Rice Doctrine..." (click on the handle below).

[Ed Marshall]

Arab moderate tends to be a code word which means Zionist. I've also noticed that we don't preach golden means fallacies for any other people other than Arabs which reinforces this theory.

[praktike]

If you like Condi Rice, you'll love Josh Muravchik on this topic!

[The Lounsbury]

Ah leave the bloody Zionist thing out of it mate, it's not the most relevant feature in all places.

[Badger]

completely off-topic, but any of you knowlegeable folk hear of a visit to Baghdad yesterday by a delegation headed by US Senate Armed Forces committee chairman Warner? (Iraqi papers report it; US papers don't)

[Anna in Portland (was Cairo)]

I think when you lose the "LebPopTarts"* vote, you may as well forget about the Arab moderates.

See this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSNGGOuVisc&eurl=

Anna :)

*This is an Aqoul term I decided to adopt

[Jonathan Versen("Hugo Zoom")]

No one has said it so succinctly before.(I think the disinformation campaign to convince Americans that Islamic fundamentalism is NOT about civil rights or economic justice only serves to underscore this.)

George Bush,jr behaves as if God himself gave him the right to (fluidly) define both "freedom" and "moderation", when in fact he seems to have considerable difficulty with both concepts.