Obama walks a political tightrope over Muslim rapprochement

Craig Nelson

• Last Updated: November 17. 2009 10:16PM UAE / November 17. 2009 6:16PM GMT

Michael Nemelka at the burial of his son, Aaron, who died in the Fort Hood shootings, comforts Aaron’s sister, Ashlee Brewer. Colin Braley / AP Photo

President Barack Obama’s policy of ‘Islamic rapprochement’ has come under scrutiny after the Fort Hood shootings, followed by the discovery of a number of domestic terrorist plots.

Under the headline “Obama’s Muslim Problem”, the popular online magazine Slate asks whether the president has been too conciliatory to a group comprising 1.3 billion people worldwide.

At first blush the question appears ludicrous. From the vantage point of the Arab-Muslim world, the answer to that question would, of course, be a resounding “No!”. Indeed, Arab Muslims would argue that far from being too conciliatory, Mr Obama, with his Cairo speech and other gestures extending an olive branch, has merely taken the first baby steps towards redressing the historical injustices perpetrated against them.

Yet what is giving pause to that obvious rejoinder – even among Americans who share the view – is the shooting spree this month by the army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan at a military base in Texas.

In the wake of the shootings, which left 13 people dead, Mr Obama is discovering that his evident empathy for Islam and Muslims is not only a political blessing; it can be a political liability, too.

As Jacob Weisberg, the author of “Obama’s Muslim Problem”, observes, the president’s heritage and well-publicised outreach to Muslims, once regarded by much of the US public as an unalloyed virtue, is now feeding “a broader suspicion that he is too casual about the threat from America’s Islamist enemies”.

Even before the Fort Hood shootings, the ground underneath the president’s “Islamic rapprochement” was shifting because of a spate of alleged domestic terrorist plots uncovered in recent months. These plots include, notes Mr Weisberg, four men accused of planning to attack synagogues and shoot down military aircraft in upstate New York, an Afghan man charged with making bombs in Colorado and an alleged attempt by a Jordanian teenager to blow up a 60-storey skyscraper in Dallas.

Against that backdrop, it is not possible to ignore the political problems facing Mr Obama or to dismiss as mere anti-Muslim hyperbole the extensive political and media scrutiny of the Fort Hood shootings and Major Hasan’s background.

True, the shootings have prompted some instances of especially noxious religious bigotry. Pat Robertson, a Christian televangelist and onetime Republican Party candidate for president, proffered this Strangelovian, Cold War-vintage musing on his broadcast last week: “Islam is a violent – I was going to say religion – but it’s not a religion. It’s a political system. It’s a violent political system bent on the overthrow of governments of the world and world domination.” Nevertheless, the intense media scrutiny of Major Hasan cannot be entirely passed off as the mindless ranting of right-wing TV and radio talk-show hosts and laptop bombardiers. To the contrary, it is being driven at least partly by swelling indications that the motive for his attack may have been partly connected to his Muslim faith.

The oft-cited evidence is, at the very least, suggestive. As Major Hasan unleashed one barrage of gunfire after another, he purportedly shouted the universal cry of jihad, “Allahu akbar!” or “God is great!” And on his business card he described himself as “SOA” for “slave of Allah”, or possibly, “soldier of Allah”.

All told, Mr Obama must now reckon with the public perception that a desire inside his government not to appear prejudiced against Muslims may have been a factor in the army’s failure to heed the warning signs from Major Hasan.

The political fence Mr Obama now straddles is precarious. Just as the UAE must be alert to the dangers posed by Iran’s nuclear undertakings without demonising those of Iranian heritage inside its borders, the president must make Americans mindful of their country’s sorry history of racially and religiously motivated witch hunts without appearing soft in addressing genuine dangers to US national security.

As Mr Obama is finding out, that is not an easy line to walk. In the political storm now brewing, there will inevitably be a wrangle over who is a “good” Muslim and who is not, and the president is likely to seek the support for his views from Muslims and other likeminded US citizens.

On this issue, there is potential for good will. A public opinion poll carried out in August found that nearly six out of 10 US adults believed that Muslims were facing more discrimination inside the United States than other major religious groups.

Also, a plurality of the public (45 per cent) said Islam was no more likely than other faiths to encourage violence among its believers, compared with 38 per cent who believed the opposite, according to the survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

This public sentiment is now under strain. In the public debate now under way, it probably will not suffice to claim that Major Hasan was harassed for his faith: blacks, Jews and gays have been the target of vicious hazing in the course of US military history and they have not answered with mass murder.

Also, that “Islam is a religion of violence” is an obvious and defamatory lie not likely to absolve mainstream US Muslims of the responsibility to condemn those Muslims for whom it is not.

cnelson@thenational.ae