As forces loyal to Libya's cruel and de ranged tyrant Moammar Khadafy re conquer one rebel-held city after an other, the Arab League and the Arabic press are calling for a no-fly zone over the country to tip, or at least even, the odds. While I'm inclined to help the Libyans on humanitarian grounds and to advance our own national interests, the American public's appetite is low for intervening on behalf of the rebels -- and it's largely the Arab world's fault. Last time Americans led a coalition to topple a mass-murdering dictatorship in the Middle East, the Arab League and the Arabic press hysterically denounced us as imperialist crusaders fighting a war for oil and Israel. Egged on by al-Jazeera, they cheerleaded the "resistance" that killed thousands of our soldiers with roadside bombs in the years that followed. Khadafy: Helped by Arabs' snubbing of US. Here at home, liberals fear and loathe the very idea of another Iraq, which to them is "Vietnam" conjugated in Arabic -- and many conservatives are hardly more willing to risk American treasure and lives for people who aren't necessarily our friends, who may well take shots at us after they're liberated and who might build a new aggressive regime of their own. Few expected Iraq to transition smoothly to a stable democracy after so many years of repression, sanctions and war -- but if Iraqis hadn't responded with such a vicious campaign of violence against our soldiers and each other, the thought of helping Libyans who suffer under similar circumstances wouldn't frighten or disgust quite so many of us. Iraqis didn't have to attack us after we toppled Saddam Hussein. Contrary to what some seem to believe, guerrilla warfare and terrorism weren't the only options available. The Kurds in Northern Iraq certainly didn't shoot at us -- they like us and welcomed us. They are some of the most pro-American people on earth. Not one person in their autonomous region ever attacked US forces. Only Arabs in central and southern Iraq thought a violent insurgency was the right way to proceed. The White House, Leon Wieseltier wrote in The New Republic a couple of days ago, "is so haunted by past Arab anger at American action in the Middle East that it cannot recognize present Arab anger at American inaction in the Middle East." I think he's right -- but it's not President Obama's fault that the United States is damned in the Arab Middle East if it acts and damned if it doesn't. In the Arab world, the United States is just damned. This was true before Obama was president, and it will remain true after Obama is gone, no matter what he decides to do or not do. Americans fret constantly about whether or not we're doing the right thing to win the hearts and minds of the Arabs. That's one reason Obama was elected (though I can't help but wonder how many Libyans wish John McCain were in the White House right now). This may be a good time for Arab leaders and opinion makers to ask themselves what they can do to win over the hearts and minds of Americans. They might find that if they treated us more like the Kurds do, more of us will be willing to help them in the future -- rather than shun them as hostiles who deserve to be left to their fate. Michael J. Totten is an independent for eign correspondent and foreign-policy anal yst, and author of "The Road to Fatima Gate: The Beirut Spring, the Rise of Hezbol lah and the Iranian War Against Israel." New York Post
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