How the Middle East Sees It
by Donald A. Kruse
Like Kosovo, much of the Middle East was also under Ottoman authority for a long period of time. Most Kosovar Albanians are nominally Muslim and this makes for a special kinship to Muslims in the Arab world. Because the Serbian-Kosovar struggle has been seen, to a certain degree, as pitting Christian against Muslim, there is a natural tendency for Arabs to support the Kosovars. However, while the Arab world generally has condoned the idea of preventing ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, it has been very nervous about NATO being the agent for the military action against the Yugoslav government. It is fearful that NATO's new strategic role, bypassing the UN, might someday be used against it.
Over the past 50 years, the old colonial system run by Western powers has given way in the Middle East to a plethora of independent countries—from Morocco to Iraq. The Arab world is awaking from centuries of outside domination. Heirs to a great civilization that led the world a thousand years ago, Arabs at the end of the 20th century are facing daunting choices about their future. Basically, two different voices are luring them. One voice calls them back to their past—to their traditional culture and religion. The other voice bids them enter fully into the modern era of global civilization. Without predicting which voice they will follow, it is safe to say that they will resist some elements of the West's dominant culture and seek to maintain some of their distinctive characteristics. All Arab reactions to current events should be understood in the context of this intra-cultural ambivalence.
Reactions of Friendly and Unfriendly States
In seeking to describe the reactions of Middle Eastern countries to the NATO campaign in Kosovo, it might be useful to distinguish between states usually friendly to the West and those usually antagonistic to it. We should also contrast the views of Middle East governments with the attitudes of the Arab peoples.
Among Israel and the Arab governments generally friendly to the West—and to American policy in particular—there was nominal support for the effort to prevent Serbian ethnic cleansing of Kosovo.
Israel's reaction to NATO's action was muted and ambivalent at the outset. After some hesitation, then Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu endorsed the NATO action. However, then Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon was quoted by an Israeli newspaper as saying that Israel had good reason to disassociate itself from NATO's action, which set a "dangerous precedent" of intervention in a sovereign state. He warned that someday an international force might try to make Israel bow to its will against Israel's perceived interests. One Israeli commentator noted, "No Zionist, however liberal, would want a Yugoslavia-style intervention by NATO or the UN in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." It is also worth noting that among all Yugoslav ethnic groups, Serbs have been credited with being the least anti-Jewish.
Arab states friendly to the West, such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, expressed moderate support for the American policy of intervention in Kosovo. They applaud any example of the United States acting on behalf of oppressed fellow Muslims. Nevertheless, for a variety of reasons—particularly the implications of NATO actions for the future of collective security under the United Nations—the official reaction of friendly states could be characterized as anti-Serb rather than pro-NATO.
Iran, Syria, Iraq, and Libya, by contrast, strongly protested NATO bombings and expressed suspicion of NATO's intentions, especially the implications of 'out-of-area' actions approved by NATO. Arab countries such as Libya and Iraq and the non-Arab Iran put the worst interpretations on any American action. By extension in this case, they see NATO as simply a cat's paw for American policy. NATO has never been a favorite in the Arab world, dating back to the earlier days of the Cold War when many Arab states lined up with the USSR in their struggles against Israel.
If Arab governments have been split over support for the NATO action in Kosovo, it is very clear that the Arab masses are opposed, almost viscerally, to the idea of Western states (former colonial powers) taking it into their hands to use military force against another country. The United States, because of its perceived bias in favor of Israel, is thought to be untrustwor- thy in its foreign policy. This is true even though the action taken by Western powers in Kosovo has been manifestly aimed at helping mostly Muslim Albanian Kosovars by preventing further Serb atrocities against them.
As for the Palestinians, scenes of desperate Kosovars fleeing their homes by foot, horse cart and motor vehicle reminded Palestinians of events in their homeland in 1947-48. One Palestinian told me, "The difference between the 1940s and 1999 is CNN." Although the Palestinians are glad to observe that Albanians in Kosovo are being helped by the West, they will wait to pronounce judgment on the work of NATO until they see the final fate of the Kosovar Albanians. Palestinians regret the reluctance of the world community to produce a just solution to their own conflict of more than 50 years with Israel. They blame the United States for this delay because of the constant vetoing of any United Nations resolution that would require Israel to cease its anti-Palestinian actions.
The International Context
As we come to the end of the bloody and tumultuous 20th century and the recent end of the Cold War, Western ideas of democracy and free enterprise appear triumphant and are prescribed as the model of success and progress. The United States proclaims its support for international principles for all nations—free elections, one person/ one vote, multi-party democracy, multi-cultural societies, free trade, and concern for human rights. The words of President Kennedy's 1963 speech at American University about making the world safe for diversity still seem to underlie our international agenda. Unfortunately, our actions often betray our rhetoric.
Our persistent failure to pay our outstanding debts to the United Nations, our refusal to accept certain judgments of the World Court, and our selective expression of concern about human rights abuses, for example, do not pass unnoticed around the world. Our military intervention on behalf of the Albanians in Kosovo is measured against our failure to stop the genocide in Rwanda or the slaughter in Sierra Leone and the Sudan. To the Arab and Moslem observer, America's willingness to use its extraordinary military power unilaterally against Libya, Iraq, and recently against Afghanistan and Sudan is proof of American prejudice against them.
It is difficult for the United States, which was not in existence a thousand years ago at the time of the Crusades, to understand that even today in the Arab world this part of Western history is still very much alive in Arab consciousness—both Christian and Muslim. The Crusades were followed by colonial exploitation and domination, which encouraged the Arabs to believe that the West is prone to intervene in the Middle East whenever it suits its interests. This tendency to intervene seems all the more probable at a time when the West, especially the United States, has such superior military strength and capability. The American ability to engage militarily by using stand-off weaponry that protects Americans from loss appears desirable to Americans, but Arabs see it as taking unfair advantage of technologically inferior societies.
Repeated American military forays against foreign states not only breed enormous resentment, but also raise questions about "just wars." NATO's remarkably successful air campaign over Yugoslavia has created feelings of anger and frustration not only among the Serbs, but also among Arabs, Russians, and the Chinese. The biblical question, "Who made you a judge over us?" is in the Arab mind as it observes American military actions.
The events in Kosovo have revealed attitudes on the part of Middle Eastern countries that may surprise Western observers. Instead of strong support for NATO's military intervention on behalf of the Kosovars, there has been a growing unease even among America's friends regarding the use of military power outside NATO's traditional area of responsibility. Everyone in the Middle East was relieved when Mr. Milosevic accepted NATO's terms and the bombing stopped. The fact that there were no American casualties will lead many in the Arab world to believe that American hawks will now be encouraged to push future military interventions aimed at establishing a Pax Americana. Our friends in the Arab world sincerely hope that we will resist giving in to such impulses.
The religious issue did not come to the forefront in Kosovo. This was partly because the Kosovars, for the most part, are only nominally Muslim and did not get much help from more radical Islamic groups. Moreover, NATO, seen as Christian, was actually acting in support of Muslim Kosovars and against the nominally Christian Serbs. All in all, therefore, Kosovo was not a textbook case of Christian-Muslim conflict, and one may hope that such a conflict will not occur in the future.
[Mr. Kruse, now retired, served in both European and Middle Eastern diplomatic posts for the American Foreign Service.]
