Reflection #6

In World Politics this week, we were doing the topic of terrorism and read a very interesting article by Pierre Tristam that argues that today terrorism is no longer a defined term but a term used for political convenience. Need to rally your people? Claim that terrorists are ready to attack your nation and everyone will suddenly become patriotic. Of course after 9/11 there is one extreme drawback to that tactic. You subject your citizens of the Muslim faith and of Middle-Eastern origins to heavy discrimination simply because the powerful word terrorist evokes the image of the Islamists responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The term used by the Bush Administration, the "War on Terror" was a nice political slogan but, unfortunately, it did not help matters because it effectively singled out those that were judged to resemble in looks and dress, the 9/11 Islamists.
The same thing since 2001 is occurring when it comes to our relationships with the Middle Eastern countries with the exception of Israel. The United States treats them like one would unstable explosives: handle with care and assume they are dangerous. Diplomacy cannot be reasonably conducted on those terms. Of course, they are countries that warrant being treated as such, namely Iran which has called the US the enemy and has vowed to get Israel off the map. However, there is the case of Egypt and President Morsi, just because he is a member of a group that includes certain extremists and conservatives, his election is labelled a threat to global security whereas he has actually proven to be quite moderate. Should the US treat everyone through the heavy filter of 9/11? Or should the US actually start practicing diplomacy and enforcing alliances and ties in order to foster peace in a region that seems to have suffered just as much from the Islamists presence as the rest of the world has. It seems as if you might need to wait until the next election cycle for that to occur since as Monday's presidential debate on Foreign Policy, ironically with little to do with Foreign Policy in the end, reinforced the notion that both candidates offer us the same path in terms of Foreign Policy and our role and outlook in the MENA region.