Why is the Islamic world anti-American? Ashok Sharma examines the challenges ahead for the United States in the Middle East.

• Author: Sharma, Ashok

As a security analyst, I think the United States is a better alternative than any other power or combination of powers in the management of global affairs. However, the United States is not performing up to its potential in the Middle East. Once again, the United States is dashing with the governments and people of the Middle East and the larger Islamic world. The violent protests in cities across the Islamic world recently targeted the symbols of US influence, such as consulates, schools and restaurants, in reaction to a crude film named 'Innocence of Islam' made in the United States by a right-wing Christian group that ridicules Islam. These violent protests have resulted in the killing of four US officials of the diplomatic mission in the Libyan city of Benghazi, and more than two dozen protesters died in associated confrontations with authorities. In much of the region, police from broadly pro-Western regimes attempted to contain the protests, but in Iran crowds had official sanction to chant 'Death to America' and 'Death to Israel' in central Tehran. In Pakistan the government declared an official holiday for the love of the Prophet and in the Sudanese capital Khartoum parts of the British and the German missions were pillaged.

The United States' immediate response was the resolve by the President Obama to stand by the fragile fledgling democracies of the Middle East, while deploying platoons of Marines to vulnerable embassies and launching a manhunt by the US military and intelligence agencies in Libya for the militants who staged the assault on the Benghazi consulate.

These events suggest that despite Obama's arrival in the White House and all the efforts that his administration has deployed, anti-Americanism in the Islamic world has not abated. The resurgence of anti-American protest has became an important issue in the on-going Global War on Terrorism and US policy in the Middle East, emerging again in US presidential debates in October 2012, in which Republican candidate Mitt Romney accused the Obama administration of having a weak and muddled stance.

Longstanding sentiment

But anti-Americanism is not new in the Islamic world. The genesis of anti-Americanism and anger against the United States and the West among the larger Islamic community can be traced to the US-West European political hegemony in the Middle East seeking to exploit the lucrative oilfields, their support for Israel in the 1978 Israel-Lebanon War and in Israel Palestine conflicts, and their overall foreign policy in the Middle East. More recently, anger was generated by the United States' continued support of Israel, the post-9/ll US response to the attack on America, the 'Clash of Civilisation' arguments regarding Christianity and Islam, and the lack of modern liberal democratic secular values, education and systems in the Islamic world.

It is a paradox that the United...