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David Adesnik, a research analyst in Washington DC, received his doctorate in international relations from Oxford.

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How Appealing

Monday, April 14, 2003

# Posted 12:19 AM by Ariel David Adesnik  

IRAQIS STILL NOT ARABS: "The morning after Baghdad was liberated, Abdul Hamid Ahmad, editor of The Gulf News, wrote, like so many of his colleagues: 'This is a heartbreaking moment for any Arab, seeing marines roaming the streets of Baghdad.'" -- Tom Friedman, 13 Apr 2003.

While such statements are good for a laugh, I think there is a more serious point to be made here as well. By celebrating their liberation from Saddam by Western forces, the people of Iraq will soon force Arabs throughout the Middle East to reconsider their definition of Arab identity.

As indicated by both the statement above and others like it, opposition to all manifestations of Western or American power has become a part of modern Arab identity throughout much of the Middle East. (Fascinating, isn't it, that neither the Iranians nor the Turks are ethnic Arabs...)

Before the fall of Baghdad, no American president, no matter how eloquent, could have persuaded the Arab world that an American presence in the Middle East would benefit its inhabitatns. But a picture is worth more than a thousand words. It says things that words cannot say.

Let us hope that a decade from now, the images projected by the people of Iraq will still be as inspiring as they are today.



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