The events of 11 September 2001 exposed the complexity of the conflicts racking the Middle East. The enormous social forces set free by the event can no longer be ignored. Ready to die defending their interests, the perpetrators of the crime have become a model to be emulated and admired.

Since then the Arab ruling classes have openly distanced themselves from many of the West’s policies rejected by their people; religious movements have challenged the secularism of their governments; Saudi Arabia has chosen to lead rather than follow the rest of the Arab countries; women have condemned the dominance of men in Arab society and have protested against them in the thousands and against the governments behind them; pro-West leaders such as president Mukarak of Egypt and prince Abdallah of Saudi Arabia have warned of a dark future full of Osama bin Ladens and Saddam Husseins; the Shia political movements in Iraq are threatening American plans for their country and the standard of living in the component countries which make the Arab world has sunk to 25 year low.

The discrepancies between the West as a promoter of democracy and its practical plans to protect itself against terrorism by dominating the Middle East especially the flow and price of oil and the outcome of the Arab- Israeli conflict cannot be resolved unless America’s open-ended support for Israel is re-examined. Meanwhile, there is little hope of reclaiming what 11 September undid, even when we offer different assessments as to what existed then.

Even when we accept that a relationship did exist and that it deserves reenergizing, that what happened was no more than an unexpected disruption in relations, a break, it is still difficult to recreate past relations. Because of what 11 September did to America and the Arabs, what was broken cannot be mended. America will never forget its humiliation on the hands of a small collection of fanatics whose very existence depended on pro-West governments citing in line with US policies. The Muslims and Arabs will for decades to come analyze the outcome in terms of an ever-present anti-Arab feeling throughout the West. Supposedly, there are Western forces available to capitalize on such an event to demonize the Muslims and Arabs.

Unlike in the past, the two sides, the West and its Arab friends, are speaking different languages. What connected the two sides, what was broken on 11 September, depended on trust and common interests more than on formal treaties. On both sides trust looks like a word which has fallen into disuse.

And the prospect is for an enmity between the two sides emerging to replace the implicit acceptance of mutual dependence on each other. Even the average Arab person who is opposed to Western dominance of his or her country has lost a great deal. The chance of a modus operandi which favours the development of democratic institutions is gone. Nowadays, Americans believe only total direct control of the Middle East will provide America with the protection it needs. What was lost in one day cannot be replaced in a decade. However flawed, there did exist a policy toward, the Middle East, that of using a system of deputy sheriffs, kings, emirs and presidents to act on behalf of the West. Without a system that would shield both sides from the very simple fact that their people hate each other, the relationship between the US and Muslim and Arab people will suffer further deterioration.

Hate is what propels both sides. For hate to vanish the US will have to stop favouring Israel and calling a militant Israeli Prime Minister Sharon a man of peace. And it has to stop trying to perpetuate Western control of the price and flow of oil.

What goes so deeply wrong cannot be righted. After so years of trying America’s misadventure in the Middle East has not produced anything resembling stability. When the gathering storm produced Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein the most America learned from disaster was a greater awareness if where Afghanistan and Iraq were. Nothing else was corrected, certainly the absence of institutions has got a new lease on life. More terror is on the way.

If what is broken cannot be mended, what is lost cannot be retrieved and what goes so deeply wrong cannot be corrected then the potential of adding wrong to historical wrong is abundant. Doing things right is not a consideration, the will and tools to act correctly do not exist.

The reverend Jerry Falewell gratuitously calls the Prophet Mohammed a terrorist while President George W Bush calls Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a man of peace. The only truly free election to take place in Turkey in decades is nullified because it produced a victory for the Islamic parties. America refuses to accept promoters of Islam, even when it is moderate.

Attacks on Islam in America are allowed to pass because Islam is not popular and no one can afford to defend or support a losing cause. It is much more popular to oppose Islam. Much more importantly nobody is trying to mend, retrieve or correct. Leaders on both sides have gone into the business of allocating blame. Even a country as dependent for protection on the US as Saudi Arabia blames America for not following a sensible Middle East policy. In fact, the George W Bush administration accuses Saudi Arabia of not doing enough to oppose political Islam. US forces in Saudi Arabia have been asked to leave. Their departure was without fanfare but it still handed Osama bin Laden an easy victory.

In fact America and Britain, through the words and deeds of theirs leaders concentrate on who did 11 September without much attention to why. Answering the why question would inevitably incriminate them. They were the sponsors of Islamists against secular Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt in the 1960s. Osama Bin Laden was on of their employees.

Even if we accept 11 September as an expression of something which has been in the making for decades, the lack of effort to solve what separates the two sides means a slide into hell.

Iraqis are resisting the US occupation of their country within weeks of the ill-advised attack on their country. Women in Saudi Arabia are marching to condemn George W Bush. Young men in Gaza burn the American flag daily. Kuwaitis are objecting to their reduction to a US colony. Husni Mubarak of Egypt warns of the fire next time. The US has never been as unpopular with the Arabs as now. If only because that, the dark at the end of the tunnel frightens. There isn’t a single glimmer if hope. What is on the way is the loud sound of despair, what began as a whimper is heading towards a bang.

© Said K Aburish