'That They May Have Life'

By David Ignatius

Sunday, September 30, 2001; Page B07

It's clear what America's new war is against: It's against terrorism, as symbolized by the barbarous attack on the World Trade Center. But what exactly is the U.S.-led coalition fighting "for"?

This is no small matter of semantics. History shows that the United States has been successful in war when it could define its security interests in terms of larger goals that benefited the rest of the world -- even (perhaps, especially) the areas of the world from which its enemies have arisen.

America entered World War I partly in the hope of creating a new global security system symbolized by the League of Nations. That effort sadly failed, but even as America was fighting World War II, it was working to create the network of institutions -- the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund -- that later helped bring decades of peace and prosperity, not least to postwar Germany and Japan.

Perhaps the best model for what President Bush has called "a lengthy campaign unlike any other we have ever seen" is the Cold War. Victory was finally achieved in that 40-year war through American willpower, patience and military might, yes. But there was something else. The Cold War was a war of liberation. The United States was fighting against poverty, ignorance, corruption and the other social ills in which communism could breed. That was the genius of the Marshall Plan -- it created a Europe strong and prosperous enough that it left the communists no air to breathe.

To succeed, the new war against terrorism must be also a war of liberation. At its core, it must have the idealism and universal purpose that sustained America in its other conflicts. But it cannot have this character unless the United States changes some of the fundamentals of its policy toward the Arab and Islamic world.

U.S. policy has been allowed to drift in recent years into what I would describe as arrogant neglect. Too often, America has allied with corrupt and authoritarian regimes in what many Muslims see as a cynical attempt to protect the West's oil supplies. The United States has been obsessed with Arab-Israeli issues, in addition to oil. But beyond the machinations of the peace process, it has often seemed oblivious to the lives of ordinary people in that part of the world. It's as if America cares about Arabs only when there is a crisis.

America even seems afraid to utter its basic creed of democracy and human rights in the Arab world. Perhaps that's because it fears offending the royal family in Saudi Arabia. Or perhaps U.S. policymakers are afraid that when Muslims vote, they will opt for anti-American regimes like the one in Iran. But the United States should never be in the position of betting against democracy and freedom -- anywhere.

The United States must rely now on an unwieldy coalition of Islamic governments. There is Saudi Arabia, which a few days before the Sept. 11 bombings had refused to attend a joint U.S.-Saudi military planning meeting and had fired its pro-American intelligence chief. There is Egypt, which must know considerably more about the activities of the Egyptians in Osama bin Laden's organization than it shared with Washington prior to Sept. 11. And there is Pakistan, whose intelligence service arguably created the Taliban government in Afghanistan -- the one that is now harboring bin Laden -- in a selfish effort to bolster its own position against India.

Not an ideal collection of allies. But in truth the United States has the allies it deserves in the Islamic world. Over the past two decades, the United States became aloof, disengaged and unreliable in the Middle East. It had a powerful alliance with Israel, as it should -- but it allowed most other aspects of its Middle East policy to atrophy.

That must change now. America is fighting a war of liberation -- not simply from terrorism but from the conditions that breed it.

It's useful to remember that American influence in the Middle East began with the idealism of those who came to the region in the 19th century as teachers, traders and missionaries. They founded schools and colleges throughout the region that trained generations of Arabs -- and gave the region its first solid bridge to the modern world.

One of the greatest of those institutions is American University of Beirut. It stayed open through some of the darkest days of the Lebanese civil war, despite kidnappings, assassinations and car bombings.

Over the main gate of the university stood a defiant arch carved with the words that expressed its mission: "That they may have life, and have it abundantly." That's an ideal worth fighting for, in America and around the world.