Bush’s Marginalization of Mideast Historians Led to Iraq War Mistakes, Says Fawaz Gerges

By Pat and Samir Twair


	MPAC speakers (l-r) Rabbi Steven Jacobs, Prof. Fawaz Gerges and Dr. Maher Hathout (Staff photo S. Twair).

MORE THAN 900 Muslims traveled to the Long Beach Convention Center Dec. 15 for the 7th annual Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) convention. Keynote speaker at the banquet was Lebanese-American scholar Fawaz Gerges, whose book Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy was published in 2007 by Harcourt Press.

According to Professor Gerges, the major flaw in the Bush administration’s reaction to 9/11 was to marginalize modern Middle East historians in favor of a new class of ideologists including neocons and so-called terrorism experts who know little about Islam.

“We experts were told to shut up because we failed to warn of the coming 9/11 attacks, that we were suspect and no longer could be trusted,” said the professor of Arab and Muslim politics at Sarah Lawrence College.

By undermining scholarly experts and replacing them with a whole new body of neocon social engineers, he explained, the reality of transnational jihadists was misread.

Gerges, who regularly appears on national news programs, said that at its peak in the 1990s, the movement never exceeded 3,000 militants. By the late 1990s, the jihadist ship was sinking, he stressed, and the only way it could win was to expel the U.S. from the Middle East. Al-Qaeda was a small fringe group within the jihadist movement, Gerges said, and it knew it had to attack the U.S. in order to gain stature.

The second flaw in U.S. policy, he continued, was to lump all jihadists together. After 9/11, every Muslim cleric denounced al-Qaeda, he noted, but the Bush administration targeted all Islamists from the Muslim Brotherhood to liberation groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

Al-Qaeda was in a coma after the disaster of 9/11, Gerges continued—until the U.S. expanded its war on terrorism and invaded Iraq. It poured more than $400 billion into its Iraq adventure which has killed 100,000 to 1 million Iraqis and turned another 2.5 million into refugees. Iraq is in a sectarian crisis that, Gerges warned, is spilling over into Lebanon. “We went to Iraq to hammer a nail into the coffin of al-Qaeda,” he noted, “and instead U.S. actions have revived al-Qaeda cells throughout the Middle East and parts of Europe.

“The solution is to extract U.S. forces from Iraq—the sooner the better.”

Security vacuums will arise, Gerges acknowledged, but the Bush administration should have realized it is not fighting a conventional army. Arabs are better qualified to stop al-Qaeda, he argued, and the best way to do this is to encircle it, not confront it.

What a difference it would have made, Gerges mused, if Washington had instead invested $400 billion into establishing a viable Palestinian state and rejuvenated failed Arab societies, where 150 million people live in poverty. These, he said, include Lebanon, where 40 percent live in poverty; Egypt, with 48 percent; Sudan, with 61 percent; and Yemen, with 69 percent surviving beneath the poverty line.

David Hiller, publisher and CEO of the Los Angeles Times, spoke at the second plenary entitled “Shaping the Conversation.” He became friends with MPAC executive director Salam al-Marayati, Hiller explained, when both attended a recent Chicago Council on Global Affairs event. As a result, he invited a contingent of local Muslim youth leaders to meet his paper’s foreign editor and reporters to discuss how the Times handles topics of interest to Muslim readers.

In Plenary III, Shaarik Zafar, senior policy adviser of the Department of Homeland Security, urged members of the audience who believe they have been unduly harassed at airports by authorities to report their complaints to <www.dhs.gov/trip>. If they aren’t satisfied, Zafar invited them to contact him at <civil.liberties@dhs.gov>.

Egyptian Float in Rose Parade


Egypt’s award-winning entry (Staff photo S. Twair).

For the first time in the 119-year history of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses, an Arab nation—Egypt—was represented in the New Year’s Day procession of floats and bands. The Royal Jordanian Army Marching Band participated in the pageant in 1987, but this year, a 55-foot-long float entitled “Celebrating the Treasures of Egypt” was seen by billions of TV viewers around the world.

The spectacular float featuring colossal enthroned images of Pharaoh Ramses II and Queen Nofertari won the Past Presidents’ Trophy. Every inch of the float was covered with organic material from ground sesame seed and cinnamon used for skin tones on the royal ancient Egyptians to papyrus plants imported from Egypt.

Horus, the falcon deity, was covered in amber straw flowers, his scepter adorned with golden clover. Enormous lotus blossoms were fashioned by rows of orange lentils, white pumpkin seeds and red kidney beans. More than 40,000 roses, including the Cleopatra Rose, adorned the float festooned with orchids, ti leaves and even tiny onion seeds for the eyebrows of the royal pair.

The float was sponsored by the Cairo-Los Angeles Friendship Society under the aegis of Dr. Wasfy Shindy, who worked non-stop for most of the past year to bring the project to fruition. Only three new entries are accepted each year, and it was only through the assistance of L.A. County Board of Supervisor Mike Antonovich that Egypt was granted one of the coveted spots.

Anti-War Activists March in Pasadena

Network TV cameras did their best to eliminate anti-war and impeachment signs in the Jan. 1 Rose Parade audience, but many messages still appeared during the New Year’s Day pageant attended by an estimated 1 million people.

As the final float passed, members of the White Rose Impeachment Coalition, many in orange jumpsuits representing Guantanamo Bay prisoners, picked up “Impeach Bush/Cheney” banners and a 50-foot long replica of the U.S. Bill of Rights and began walking along the emptying parade route to Pasadena City Hall.

Three demonstrators were attacked for the messages they carried. Irena Varjabedian and Kate McKuen were assailed by a woman who grabbed their two-part sign stating “End Israeli Apartheid.” Cindy Williams, who carried a poster reading “No More Wars for Israel,” suffered a sprained finger when a large man snatched her sign and began to stomp on it. Until, that is, an even larger man wearing a media badge ordered the attacker to return the sign. He did.

Several hundred people gathered on the City Hall steps, where members of Code Pink dressed in American Revolutionary War patriot costumes unrolled a “We the People” scroll bearing the names of petitioners for impeachment.

Marcy Winograd of Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles urged the assembled to carry on the message of the Bill of Rights and seek justice for all Americans. “The people should not be afraid of the government,” she stated, “the government should fear the will of its citizens.”

Huge papier-maché caricatures of George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Cheney—all dressed in striped prison costumes—loomed over the throng of protesters.

The emcee named those Democratic members of the House of Representatives from California—Jane Harman, Henry Waxman, Elton Gallegy, Adam Schiff, Howard Berman, Loretta Sanchez and Brad Sherman—who had failed to vote for impeachment, which remained 26 votes short of passing.

KinderUSA Witnesses Crises in Lebanon

Conditions grow grimmer by the day in Gaza, but in northern Lebanon, Palestinian survivors of a deadly four-month exchange between the Lebanese Army and Fatah al-Islam forces are facing extreme deprivation (see Sept./Oct. 2007 Washington Report, p. 12).

That’s why Kinder USA chairwoman Dr. Laila al-Marayati and director Dalell Mohmed visited the Badawi and Naher Al Bared camps from Nov. 24 to 30.

With a population of 40,000, Naher Al Bared camp, situated 16 kilometers north of Tripoli, was the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, where it was established in 1949. In May, fighting broke out that left 40 civilians, 167 Lebanese troops and 200 Fatah Islam fighters dead.

Refugees fled to the nearby Badawi camp, which had at most 18,000 inhabitants. By October, when it appeared safe to return, Naher Al Bared camp had lost 85 percent of its buildings and its remaining homes had been looted—in short, there was nothing to return to.

What most appalled the two American women was the lack of warm clothing for the children.

“They fled in the summer and now, in winter, youngsters were slogging through the mud in sandals,” recalled Dr. al-Marayati. “They wear shorts and T-shirts. I saw several young girls sharing one sweater.”

Meanwhile, an estimated 27,000 children do not attend school because classrooms have been converted into living shelters. Mohmed plans to deliver much-needed supplies of blankets, medicine and clothing. For more information, visit <www.kinderusa.org>.

Pat and Samir Twair are free-lance journalists based in Los Angeles.