The anti-western Muslim fury over the inflammatory cartoons of Prophet Mohammed began to spread at the beginning of the month. And it kept on spreading till last Saturday, when it reached, hopefully, its peak, with over three dozen people killed in Nigeria and Libya in violent demonstrations, 26 of them Nigerian Christians killed by infuriated Muslim mobs. The spur for Saturday’s violence was display on television of an undershirt by Italy’s minister for reforms, the anti-immigrant Roberto Calderoli.

The damage from this cartoon crisis is substantial for both sides. Muslims are convinced more than ever before that a crusade is underway against them, and united in anger in a way they have not been in years, since the last such anger, over the US-led war on Iraq, even though some Muslims and leaders quietly supported the invasion.

At the same time, most westerners have been mystified over the violent anger about mere cartoons, and many are now convinced that most Muslims are intolerant and do not appreciate basic freedoms, posing a threat to free societies. So the anti-Muslim phobia that the cartoons promoted to begin with has deepened. The Muslim-western fissure is at an all-time high.

One has to ask the question, was there something that western leaders could have done which might have soothed the open Muslim wound and prevented anti-western sentiments exploding the way they have?

Initially, US and British foreign policy officials seemed to recognize the perilous nature of the cartoons crisis and distanced themselves from their publication. But two days later, when President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice first addressed the issue in separate press appearances, they refused to criticize the cartoons. Instead, they pursued their well-worn goals and condemned Muslim extremists and the Iranian and Syrian regimes for inciting the violence that accompanied some of the demonstrations.

Shifting the focus from the cartoons to extremist Muslims deepened incalculably the growing conviction that the West makes little distinction between moderates and extremists, and that the battle really is against all of Islam.

This is a heavy price to pay at a time when the western position is already so weakened in Muslim and Arab states, and the Americans are on the edge of potentially catastrophic setbacks in a number of countries, especially Iraq and Afghanistan.

Be that as it may, those best placed to prevent the demonstrations from turning violent were Muslim leaders themselves. But the leaders of most Muslim states are unpopular, U.S.-backed dictators who believe they can gain domestic leverage by letting their people's passions play out on "safe" issues such as this. Initially at least; Pakistan and a few other countries are now trying to stop demonstrations, since one of their principal target is pro-western leaders such as President Musharaf.

Having said that, it is important to point out what this crisis is NOT about as far as Muslims are concerned. Few of them believe that the refusal to condemn has much to do with freedom of _expression. Leaders could have condemned the cartoons as being demeaning and at the same time reaffirmed their commitment to a free press. In any event, there are many constraints on the exercise of this hallowed freedom in the west, as evidenced by right wing British historian David Irving’s three year sentence in Austria for denying in 1989 the holocaust this week.

Nor was the fury merely about the Prophet having been depicted. While most Muslims believe that any depiction of him is wrong, a number of his images exist in the Muslim world. There is one at the US Supreme Court. So the anger was much more than about depiction or even about the cartoons is part of the problem in the western understanding of the crisis. There are few characterizations which can be more inflammatory than tarring with the “terror” label the founder of a religion with more than a billion adherents, many of whom live as troubled or maligned minorities in the west and three of whose countries are occupied, two of them in the name of fighting terrorism.

Even more, I am certain that the intensity of the world-wide Muslim explosion resulted primarily from the provocative republication of the cartoons across Europe. And it is likely that these republications were at least in part a result of their leaders’ refusal to acknowledge that the cartoons were incendiary. This meant that newspapers which so wished could with impunity republish the cartoons, rather than just defend the right of Jyllands-Posten to have carried them in the first place. This same impunity was no doubt felt also by anti-immigrant Roberto Calderoli, the Italian minister who had a few months ago advocated a crusade against Muslims.

It was this perception of the complete impunity of anti-Muslim expression which created a sense of open season on them. Those in the west who wish to ease the divide from their end must recognize how extremely vulnerable Muslims feel about yet another war against them, and about the rising xenophobia leading to internal violence against those living in the West.

There are many such westerners who are pushing for a confrontation with Islam, but these are not the extremists we hear about from western leaders. There is a conviction among many Muslims that it is this growing xenophobic and anti-Muslim constituency in the west is being courted because of its strong support for the “war on terror.” And which is why there was no great urgency to address the anger from the cartoons.

The cartoon crisis is only the latest manifestation of the explosive escalation of Muslim-western tensions in recent months brought about the numerous new crimes and other scandals of lawless behaviour which have made America a toxic presence in the Muslim world and brought its standing to historic lows everywhere worldwide.

So diminished is American standing that the normally cautious United Nations and its Secretary-General Kofi Annan were prepared to risk the wrath of the organization’s most powerful member by demanding the immediate closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, which the independent experts’ report to the UN Human Rights Commission condemned as one of the many American actions which was “undermining international law.” Mr. Annan had earlier strongly criticized the publication of the cartoons.

But the greatest challenge to the Bush administration emanates from Iraq. The American position there is deteriorating rapidly, aggravated by the new images of American and British soldiers brutalizing civilians and the new call Saturday by Iran for British troops to pull out of Basra, where anti-British boycotts by Shi’a were already growing rapidly.

The American political establishment has been singularly ineffective in reining in the gross excesses of the Bush administration, which are severely undermining strategic US interests. The international community’s premier institution for maintaining peace, the UN Security Council, is also totally helpless in arresting the destructive acts of a state which the world so recently looked up to as the pre-eminent champion of democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

The US seems to be completely incapable of fashioning a global vision which will win the support of the world’s Muslims, the vast majority of whom are moderate and have historically embraced the west. In fact, there is no evidence it is even trying to work toward amity with Muslims, better public relations excepted. America’s western allies seem to be essentially bystanders to this unfolding disaster.

The Muslim world needs profound change as well, but until it is less threatened by the West, its reformers will continue to be on the defensive.

Salim Lone’s last assignment as a senior United Nations official in New York was as Spokesman for the UN mission in Iraq right after the 2003 war. salimlone@yahoo.com

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