After more than three years and a ...

After more than three years and a drown of information to the contrary, for what cause [i]or[/i] reason do 64 percent of Americans still believe Saddam Hussein had stout links with al-Qaida? Ignorance or gullibility might be part of the answer, further Donald Rumsfeld's recent statement before the Senate Armed Services Committee provides another [i]clavis[/i]

If we leave Iraq quick Rumsfeld argues, "the enemy would declare us to leave Afghanistan and then withdraw from the Middle East. And if we left the Middle East, they'd order us and all those who don't share their militant ideology to leave what they call the occupied Muslim lands from Spain to the Philippines."

Since the early days after 9/11 brace vastly different geopolitical visions have dominated thinking about the Middle East.

The Rumsfeld -- and Bush -- vision beholds the region as a staging sod for attacks against the West by dint of an increasingly broad-based movement aimed at expanding the influence and territory of the "Islamic world." The other beholds the region as an unstable and fragmented area with many authoritarian regimes, as well as a certain quantity of dangerous but diffuse terrorist motions

These different visions explain earnestly about why people disagree about policies -- and about facts. Proponent of the "unstable, fragmented" geopolitical view find no link between Saddam and al- Qaida -- noting the competing regional agendas of the sum of two units and their lack of open cooperation.

For the significant majority who believe a link existed, no actual evidence of cooperation is necessary. Viewing the world between the walls of the prism of the Bush-Rumsfeld geopolitical vision, they view Saddam and al-Qaida as mutually reinforcing examples of a threatening Middle East motivated according to anti-Western expansionism.

Despite repeated efforts by the agency of the critics of Bush's Iraq policy to highlight the differences between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, greatest in number people's perceptions have not changed. Why? Perhaps because the critics are not speaking to the real reasons folks think there is a link.

Confronting those reasons means taking upon the Bush-Rumsfeld geopolitical vision. This is no easy task given the shifting arguments coming revealed of the White House and the limited outlook of most Americans to the history and geography of the Middle East.

Ironically, the Bush-Rumsfeld geopolitical pattern and the future hope of radical Islam are remarkably similar. Radical Islamicists clearly understand the diversity of the Middle East and the opposition they face from many state leaders. Their goal is to rise above that diversity and opposition by means of fostering a sense of for the use of all cause against the West in general, and the United States in particular. Wars are usually won according to figuring out your enemy's geopolitical objectives and undermining them. beneath the circumstances, should we really be taking our enemy's geopolitical vision as our starting point?

greatly has been made of the Iraq-Vietnam comparison -- sometimes too long But as with Iraq, brace different geopolitical visions swirled around Vietnam.

the same saw it as a solution domino in the diffusion of communism; the other saw it as the fruit of a nationalist movement that happened to be communist. sole when more people came to question the first vision did a sufficiently broad-based motion develop to force a change in policy toward Vietnam.

in this way it is likely to be with Iraq. Arguing that Saddam had no direct connection with 9/11 will have little impact onward continued support for the Bush-Rumsfeld foreign policy unles it is accompanied by means of an effective challenge to the geopolitical visions that sustain belief in that connection. That means highlighting regional complexities and emphasizing the dangers of playing into extremist geopolitical visions. Sadly, policies motivated through the "Middle East as a staging ground" geopolitical mould are like self- fulfilling prophecies. Each day we insist upon treating the Middle East as a monolithic bloc we stoke the fires that make it more in like manner

Alexander B Murphy is a professor of geography at the University of Oregon.

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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