Anti-Americanism and the election

Among the many criticisms made of the Bush administration is that its policies have left America isolated and given it a bad image in the world that needs radical repair. What is not being said is that there are many issues which explain the reality of global anti-Americanism. While huge numbers of words have been expended “explaining” anti-Americanism in the current presidential campaign, these have shed little light. A reality check is needed.

It is true that anti-Americanism has become the only serious competitor to soccer as a global sport; that in many places it has reached a level of stridency rarely seen before; and that it has roots much older than the presidency of George W Bush. Beyond that, however, to look at the causes and manifestations of the phenomenon one has to make certain key distinctions, often missed, more often than not on purpose.

The most immediately evident is the relationship between the end of the Cold War and the growth of negative attitudes toward the United States. Prior to the Soviet collapse, national interest for those on the anticommunist side in what used to be called the third world demanded a muting of ill feelings toward the only available protector - Washington.

Today, what could be described as nationalist or leftist parties in Europe, from Spain to Greece to France, and Islamist regimes elsewhere can both afford to be openly anti-American as well; hence the growth of that sentiment in increasingly nationalistic Turkey, the Philippines, and Korea, and its persistence in Paris, London and Berlin. In the latter case, the present global financial crisis only adds another (false) argument against “American” capitalism, never mind that Europe is in worse financial shape.   In Latin America, which is now going through one of its cyclical love affairs with leftism and populism, the story is simpler still. For a Chavez, Correa or Morales to be anti-American goes naturally with being statist, incompetent, and strident.

(Western) Europe is the most oft-mentioned case of our allies turning against us because of our wrong-headed policies and arrogant behavior. But, as in Latin America, among elites, hostility to the United States is old hat - over a century old in the case of France, the intellectual leader of Europe. It is hostility against the uncivilized big upstart from across the ocean (hence the derision of “cowboys” Reagan and Bush); envy and, yes, resentment toward the liberators of an impotent Europe in 1945. For many on the European Right America is a threat to national identity (see Jean-Marie Le Pen in France), its free-wheeling capitalism a competitor to statism, and more generally a symbol of a globalization feared by nationalists everywhere.

In Russia the growing and very popular anti-Americanism is part and parcel of the resurgence of Moscow’s imperial ambitions, with Washington being seen as the principal obstacle to the fulfillment of those ambitions.

In the Islamic world the very same civilizational decline and frustration that made al-Qaida possible and still helps its appeal grow in places like Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh makes the United States - the most present and thus painful symbol of Muslim economic, political and cultural backwardness - a natural scapegoat, at both elite and mass levels. In some ways this is the same game as in Latin America: encourage hatred for the big foreigner to distract attention from the local abusive ruler who, at least, is one of your own. It is also less than surprising that some Arab elites are hopeful for a new Cold War, which would allow their regimes to play the ugly American against the admittedly infidel but friendly (and full of promises and cheap guns) Russians.

One of the causes of the spreading of anti-Americanism in Europe and the Islamic world is its association with anti-Semitism. The two are joined at the hip by the same glue of impotence and envy. Unable to destroy Israel, Islamists blame America for supporting it because that is easier than admitting their own disunity and backwardness. Many among the European elites, and some populists, also blame “Zionism” (often a code word for Israel) for both the problems of the Middle East and, more recently, for their own countries’ problems with the masses of Muslim immigrants. Of course, as everyone “knows,” Israel is still around only because Jews control Washington’s policies - on this there is a meeting of the minds between jihadis and the ultra-secular “progressives.”  

In many places, Latin America and some European countries among them, there is a distinct difference between elite anti-Americanism and popular indifference or even friendship toward the Americans and even their government. That is the only logical explanation why elected leaders Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, Silvio Berlusconi or Gordon Brown - none of whom are anti-American - are leaders of their important countries. As for Eastern Europe and Africa, the two areas where anti-Americanism does not thrive (yet?), there are good reasons for this. When countries were treated as Russian/Soviet colonies and denied national identity in the name of a “proletarian internationalism”enforced by tanks, neither socialism nor hostility to the values represented by the United States can easily take root. And when the United States has never been present as a colonial power and is the main aid donor, Africans have little incentive to hate Americans.

Many conservatives, President Bush among them, complain that anti-Americanism is due to ignorance and America’s ineffectiveness in making its case. They are wrong on all counts. America is known throughout the world, but it is the wrong America, that of its native critics and enemies, that is known: Hollywood movies obsessed with hatred for capitalism, the military and the CIA; Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore’s obsessive hatred of ordinary Americans and their elected representatives; idiotic rappers; and guilt-ridden academics.

And then there is the old schizophrenia of America’s views of the world. The world is or it should be like us, but we do not particularly like to interfere, to be “ global policemen,” especially when it costs too much. In their own differently misguided and arrogant ways, both President Bush and the militant “human rights” activists pursue the same kind of moral imperialism: the former with his dangerous understanding of democracy as a vital and universal commodity for export - whether there is a market for it or not, and the latter by promoting the thinking of Vermont or California “progressive” judges as “international standards.”

This moral imperialism is as inappropriate as it is resented elsewhere. There is also the naive but so American belief that being the biggest donors of foreign aid - public and private - should result in the foreigners being grateful. Unsurprisingly, that does not happen - not in Sumatra, Egypt, Jordan or Pakistan - because American aid is taken as natural or, more often than not, is seen as a form of ”reparations” for past, mostly imaginary, sins.

None of those complaining about America’s bad image in the world or its (occasional) lack of allied support ever ask an important question: is it possible, just possible, that in at least some issues (think Iran) America may be right and the mythical “international community” wrong? When President Bush stated that on the issue of terrorism there are only two possible positions - for or against - he was accused of unilateralism and arrogance. But we are never told what would be a third position!

For many years the sophisticated Europeans have engaged in negotiations with Iran, with U.S. support. The result is that Iran is now closer than ever to becoming a nuclear power. Could it be that the Europeans have replaced real diplomacy - one based on real power - with talks intended to obscure their absolute lack of both will and capabilities? Could it be that our European allies’ clinging on United Nations’ blessings for any action are supported by a very fragile reed indeed - one that is dependent on the approval of Moscow and Beijing? That the UN, far from being the necessary source of international law, is the collective voice of a majority of countries who are neither democratic nor restrained by any law? Given these realities, is the United States’ occasionally taking action without UN approval wrong?

Anti-Americanism will continue to thrive unless the American public understands the problem - an unlikely prospect considering our educational establishment’s encouragement of national guilt. One of the most important, if not the most important, reasons for this is that it is largely cost-free. It is the Bush White House that is criticized at home for shunning Europe’s most vocal anti-American leader, Spain’s Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the critics implying that Washington should turn the other cheek.

Another question that is never posed is what if the US invasion of Iraq had been successful and very brief, rather than mishandled, costly and protracted. Would anti-Americanism, at least that version using  Iraq as a pretext, be stronger or much weaker, rooted in the ignorant masses or just a handful of isolated pseudo-intellectuals?

Anti-Americanism is both a real and a global phenomenon. It has to be dealt with, in the long term, by engaging in realistic policies and attracting allies, not by masochistic exercises, public relations gimmicks, or unilateral concessions. The Michael Moore/Sean Penn/Noam Chomskys in this country are just an irritation here and abroad; to actively seek an accommodation with various foreign anti-American forces in order to make the United States “loved” would be a disaster.

The United States, like other countries, seeks good feelings abroad, but the promotion of our interests remains paramount, based on respect and even fear rather than “love.” It is time to become serious - even during a presidential campaign.