Determining America's global role, changing the American view of the Islamic world and channeling faith into peaceful change are all challenges the world faces in the Middle East today, Washington Post foreign correspondent Robin Wright said Monday in her speech "The Middle East and Islamic World: Challenges in 2004."
According to Wright, the American view of the Islamic and Arab world as entirely distinct from the U.S. poses a serious threat to establishing democracy in the Middle East. Muslims hope for global freedom and democracy, and they are deeply aware of world events and the political transformations that have reshaped the world.
"But for all the cultural and linguistic and ethnic differences, Muslims are not different from the rest of the world in their aspirations," Wright said. "The thirst for freedom and an end to tyranny is as deep today among Muslims as it was in the '80s and '90s among people of other parts of the world."
"The biggest challenge we face is helping the Islamic world make the transition to the kind of political and economic opening that has swept the rest of the world over the last two decades," Wright said in an interview earlier Monday.
Wright pointed to religion as a vehicle for political change. The failure of local political groups to act as catalysts for change has forced many Muslims to turn to their religion for answers to political dilemmas. Wright cited the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu as examples of Nobel Prize-winning religious leaders promoting political change.
"As a politically secular nation, with formal separation of church and state, we have long passed the stage of invoking God to fight tyranny. But many Muslims haven't yet. Indeed, they are only getting to this stage," Wright said.
"The challenge today to the United States is not just containing terrorism. The challenge is also ensuring that the enormous energy expressed through faith is channeled into the kind of peaceful change that most Muslims want."
This challenge cannot be met with U.S. military force, Wright said. Iraqis, for example, must rebuild for themselves, even if that means a longer period of instability. U.S. intervention could mean unintended consequences in Iraq, much like Osama bin Laden's emergence after Desert Storm.
Wright said the short-term outlook for the Middle East and Islamic countries is pessimistic.
"The U.S. is now basically in charge of recreating a country the size of California." Wright said. "The Bush administration has already begun to lower the goalpost of what will mean success in the Middle East and Iraq."
Finding alternative oil and better education will both be important weapons as the U.S. prepares to face challenges in the Middle East and Iraq.
Wright sees the long-run outlook as optimistic. Improvements in technology and globalization as well as a large population of dissatisfied young people all contribute to positive change, she said.
According to Wright, discontent among youth could lead the new generation to make democratic reforms in their governments.
Wright's speech was well received by her large audience.
"I was impressed by the way in which she was able to take a lot of her individual experiences over the last quarter century and draw parallels between them," said audience member Claire Chandler '04.
Wright appeared as part of the Montgomery Foundation's series "Truth and Ethics in Journalism."
