Resurrecting Empire

Oh ye Egyptians, they may say to you that I have not made an expedition hither for any other object than that of abolishing your religion . . . but tell the slanderers that I have not come to you except for the purpose of restoring your rights from the hands of the oppressors.

—Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexandria, 2 July 1798

Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators . . . . It is the hope and desire of the British people and the nations in alliance with them that the Arab race may rise once more to greatness and renown among the peoples of the earth.

—General F. S. Maude, commander of British forces, Baghdad, 19 March 1917

Unlike many armies in the world, you came not to conquer, not to occupy, but to liberate, and the Iraqi people know this.

—Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. secretary of defense, Baghdad, 29 April 2003

The United States has been deeply involved in the Middle East for many years, notably since the signing of an oil exploration deal with Saudi Arabia in 1933. It has been a major, and generally the dominant, Middle East power since U.S. forces landed in North Africa and Iran in 1942. Today, with American troops occupying Iraq and battling a stubborn insurgency there, we have entered an entirely new phase in the long encounter between the United States and the Middle East.

Starting in the mid-nineteenth century, the United States gained renown for its educational, medical, and charity efforts in the Middle East. Major universities in Beirut, Istanbul, and Cairo are the enduring fruit of these efforts. Thereafter, it was seen as a noncolonial, and even an anticolonial, power. Since World War II, however, America has intervened more and more in the region's internal affairs and conflicts. Once admired, the United States is now resented for the establishment of military bases, its support for a series of oppressive regimes, a history of Western control of Middle Eastern oil, and its position on Palestine.

According to figures produced by a variety of research institutes, the United States has become almost universally unpopular in the vast region from Morocco to the borders of Central Asia. This has been a direct consequence of the Iraq war, and notably of the revelation that the core pretexts offered for the U.S. invasion were false, of the growing Iraqi opposition to the occupation, and of images of the hellish chaos in Iraq today broadcast everywhere in the world. The United States is increasingly being perceived as stepping into the boots of Western colonial occupiers who are still remembered bitterly in the Middle East. This colonial legacy is not ancient history. In the 1960s, in the living memory of people in the Middle East in their fifties and older—in other words, the entire decision-making generation—British troops were fighting Arabs in Aden and French troops were fighting Arabs in Algeria.

The Bush administration has acted as if it was unaware of this history. It marched into Iraq proclaiming the very best of intentions while ignoring the fact that in the eyes of most Middle Easterners, it is actions, not proclaimed intentions, that count. They have heard such proclamations before, as the epigraphs above indicate. Even if Americans do not see those actions, they go on every single day, in Fallujah for example, which has been the scene of nearly daily battles since the city was retaken with great loss of life and massive destruction in November 2004. The constant fighting in many parts of Iraq, which often includes U.S. aerial bombardment, is well covered by the press and TV in the Middle East. Having lived in Beirut for fifteen years, including nearly ten years of war, I can tell you that the bombardment of built-up urban areas is in fact much less accurate and precise than it may look from the air or can be made to look on TV. A 500-lb. bomb, for example, can kill or maim to a radius of 200 meters. Unfortunately, U.S. TV, the primary news source for most...