The battle for hearts and minds Nov 9th 2001 >From The Economist Global Agenda
In its war against terrorism, America has been slow to engage Muslim opinion, and is even losing ground with the public in Europe. Now, with a flurry of diplomatic activity and high-profile speeches, it is attempting to relaunch the propaganda war IN TERMS of both diplomacy and “public diplomacy” (which is what Americans call propaganda), this week has been the busiest since the immediate aftermath of the September attacks. An orderly queue of visiting dignitaries formed outside the White House, the president shaking hands with the leaders or foreign ministers of Britain, France, Pakistan, India and Algeria. And the effort to counter Osama bin Laden’s tirades, maintain global support for its war against terrorism, and explain why it has to keep bombing Afghanistan, will make the next few days even busier. On Thursday November 8th, George Bush addressed the nation in a rousing speech in which he praised America's firefighters, armed forces and other public servants and called on all Americans to “live in a spirit of courage and optimism”. On Saturday still more world leaders gather for a meeting of the UN General Assembly, where American leaders will be busy putting their case. Early next week, Mr Bush will host a summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. The main topic of their discussion is supposed to be arms control and missile defence, but the war in Afghanistan is bound to loom large as well. This flurry of diplomatic activity and presidential speeches is designed to rally support for the war. The administration aims to increase pressure on allies to offer more than sympathy, while reassuring Americans that the administration knows what it is doing. The public does need reassuring, even in the United States. There, concern focuses not on the war but on the confused official reaction to the anthrax outbreak. Support for military action remains sky-high. Beyond its own shores, however, America is losing the battle for hearts and minds. In Europe, support for the war is slipping. In the Middle East, opposition appears to be mounting. Even in Britain, America’s most reliable ally, support for war has fallen from around three-quarters to two-thirds, despite the hyperactivity of Tony Blair, the British prime minister, who has travelled thousands of miles in the past few weeks putting the case for the war. Some polls say four out of ten British Muslims think al-Qaeda’s attacks are in some way justified; a handful have actually volunteered to fight with the Taliban. In France, support has dropped from two-thirds to half. In both Germany and Italy, well over half the population wants the attacks on Afghanistan to end. Beyond these numbers lies a qualitative change. Among those who support war, “Yes” (we support it) has become “Yes, but” (what about innocent civilians, humanitarian aid, Ramadan?). In the Middle East, matters are worse because there are fewer doubts. Public opinion might be (generously) characterised as “No, but” (we oppose the war but disapprove of Osama bin Laden). Unlike in Europe, where opinion has been changing only recently, Arab opinion hardened early on. But the passage of time has led to a subtle and worrying development. The burden of proof has shifted: America is being asked to prove it is not waging war against Islam. The longer that charge is left to stand, the harder it will be to refute. “It is being perceived in the whole world as if this were a war against the poor, miserable and innocent people of Afghanistan,” said General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, on a stopover in Paris. General Musharraf is on his way to meet Mr Bush, whom he will press to halt the bombing campaign for Ramadan. Mr Bush has already rejected this idea, but he will have to give at least a sympathetic ear to General Musharraf's concerns. The general's views not only reflect opinion in many Muslim countries, he has also taken enormous political risks at home to side with America. Some of the opposition in the Muslim world was no doubt inevitable. And yet America must itself carry some of the blame for growing opposition and declining support. It has been unable to engage Islamic countries in a serious debate about how Mr bin Laden has abused the Koran for his own ends. It has not sent any Muslim Americans or Afghan-Americans to make its case. This is partly because groups close to the administration, such as the American Muslim Council and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) have been far more concerned about American criticism of Muslims than about acts of terror in the name of Islam (CAIR’s founder said the trial of those found guilty of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Centre was a “travesty of justice”). The administration’s broadcasts in Afghanistan have often been tone-deaf. “Attention Taliban. You are condemned. Did you know that?” American planes have dropped leaflets declaring “We are watching!” and portraying both Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, and his alleged licence plate in cross-hairs. Hardly compelling. America’s cuts in its “public diplomacy” programme—it shut the United States Information Agency as a separate department—now seem unwise. America has almost no “cultural” organisations in the Middle East and its main broadcasting arm, Voice of America, has an audience share of 2% in the region. (VOA had closed most of its services in Afghan languages and only recently started them again.) Above all, America’s difficulties with the propaganda campaign cast doubt on its conduct of the war. Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, told a news conference in India this week that the war would not take years. The week before, at a briefing in the Pentagon, he had compared the bombing of Afghanistan to that of Japan in the second world war, the point being that the latter had taken more than three years. Does it matter? If contradictions like that reflect real strategic uncertainties, the problem is not just one of ineffective propaganda. But if the underlying strategy is clear, does muddled presentation matter? After decades of official anti-American propaganda in the Arab states, the administration is unlikely to change Muslim opinion quickly, if at all. America will have to live with the hostility. And you might argue that the best, perhaps only, way of dealing with the resentment is to speak in the only language tyrannies understand: force. On this view, if America can overthrow the Taliban, capture Mr bin Laden and close down al-Qaeda’s headquarters in Afghanistan, some of the bitterness might go out of the anti-American denunciations. Also, when it comes to willingness to provide real military assistance, popular criticism has not yet proved an obstacle. Two-thirds of Germans want to stop the war, but Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s coalition has agreed to contribute 4,000 troops—the first such deployment since 1945. Italy has offered 3,000 troops. These pragmatic arguments seem persuasive—for now. But America is not dealing with a fixed amount of popular Arab hostility: the level is rising fast. And though scepticism in Europe has not blocked the promise of troops up to now, elected governments will be swayed by popular opposition if it grows much more. America needs to make its case better. It is belatedly starting to. For the first few weeks of the war, the Bush administration ignored the most important regional Arabic broadcasting system, Al Jazeera. Things began to improve when the national security adviser, defence secretary and chairman of the joint chiefs finally agreed to appear on the network. During their interviews—conducted in English, of course—they gave standard expositions of the line, barely engaging with Arab accusations. The real change came last weekend, when, in response to a new video broadside from Mr bin Laden, Christopher Ross, a former ambassador to Syria, immediately went on Al Jazeera to respond, this time in Arabic. There were two other improvements. Mr Ross’s appearance was the first evidence that new “instant response” communications offices were at work. America has set these up in Washington and London; within a week or so, it will have one in Islamabad too. These offices may or may not change minds, but their aim is right—to ensure that accusations against America do not go unanswered. The administration needs to mobilise hitherto-silent Muslim Americans to make its case. For the first time, clear and specific rebuttals have been forthcoming from Arabs of Mr bin Laden’s views, as well as of his actions. The general secretary of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, said, “Bin Laden does not speak in the name of Arabs and Muslims.” And Egypt’s foreign minister, Ahmad Maher, said, “There is war between bin Laden and the whole world.” You could say that, like America’s efforts to change minds, this is too little and too late. But it is at least a start.
