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People ask why Arabs support terrorism against us and why they hate us. We have been told by President Bush that it is because of our values. And that may well be part of the motivation of the already hardened terrorists. But every poll that has been done on Arab attitudes toward the basic values that we hold dear – family values, equal rights, civil rights, the rule of law, economic opportunity and so on - shows them to overwhelmingly support the same things we do. A few years ago, when Palestinians were asked what kind of government they would like to have, they were given a choice among a number of Arab and Western and the Israeli governments. The overwhelming choice was a democracy - like Israel’s. So they surely do not hate our values, at least not the ones we like to think we represent. And yet, in the 35 years I have served this country in that part of the world, America has never been so low in the estimation of the Arab world.

In Jordan, probably our best Arab friend, 93 percent of the people in a poll this summer had an unfavorable view of the United States. Morocco, one of our oldest friends in the region, 68 percent were negative about the United States. Needless to say, in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which have been the target of heavy US press and political criticism, the number goes up to 98 percent. That should tell us something. Something has gone badly wrong.

Even more profoundly disturbing results from these polls came when respondents in Jordan and Morocco were asked whether or not suicide bombing was justified against American forces in Iraq and against Israelis by Palestinians. 70 percent of all Jordanians and 66 percent of Moroccans said that attacks on our servicemen in Iraq were justified. 86 percent of Jordanians and 74 percent of Moroccans said such attacks were justified against Israel. What these figures show, ladies and gentlemen, is that we are losing the war on terrorism. Our armed forces may be able to pacify the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan – let us hope so. But no matter how many military personnel we invest in these wars, soldiers alone cannot win the war on terrorism. Only with support by the people of the region, as well as from the world at large, can we win that war.

Since I left Egypt after my tour as Ambassador, I have kept in touch with many of my Egyptian friends. They are in the upper classes – the traditional friends of America – the businessmen, academics, politicians and government people. These are not the average Egyptians. But even so, this summer, what they have been saying to me is: “America has lost its way! It no longer represents an effort to bring a fair peace to the region. It does not care about our casualties in Palestine or Iraq. It has adopted our methods when it comes to detention without trial, interrogation techniques at Guantanamo, and military tribunals. We wanted to follow your example; not to have you follow ours.” These are assertions I find difficult to answer. For many years as Ambassador, I was instructed to challenge leaders in the region, both in the Arab world and in Israel, on reports of detention without trial, aggressive interrogation techniques and military courts. How can our Ambassadors raise such human rights concerns today?

And we get the challenges here as well. Pat Buchanan, hardly a liberal, had this to say about our stature in the world in his new book, Where the Right Went Wrong:

We invaded a country (Iraq) that did not threaten us, did not attack us, and did not want war with us, to disarm it of weapons we have since discovered it did not have. We may have ignited a war of civilizations it was in our vital interest to avoid. Never has America been more resented and reviled in an Islamic world of a billion people.

People in the region want to believe in us, but we are going to have to make some course corrections if we are to gain their support once again. First we have to distinguish between the terrorists and the Arabs – and between the terrorists and Islam. Terrorism has been around for a long time – it is not the sole property of any one nationalism, ideology or religion. There is a great temptation to simplify and define terrorism in black and white terms. Unfortunately, it is not that simple – reality has all sorts of unpleasant and complex grays.

After we identified September 11th as having been carried out by Osama Bin Ladin and the majority of the attackers as having been Saudi, many people seized on the concept of Wahabism, an austere brand of Saudi Islamic religious practice, as the motivating factor behind the terrorists. Very few people knew then or now know what Wahabism is. And despite what you may believe about the source of Bin Ladin’s philosophy, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, the genesis of the ideology Bin Ladin has been following is not Wahabism: “Bin Ladin …relies heavily on the Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood executed in 1966 on charges of attempting to overthrow the government.” Qutb warned that more people, including Muslims, were attracted to material comforts than to his austere view of Islam. No middle ground existed for him or his followers and unless Muslims literally took up arms in the fight, ignorance and materialism would win over Islam.

The roots, then, of our problem reside in early 20th century Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood is seeking respectability today but its past has been marked by terrorist events in many Arab countries. As for Bin Ladin’s philosophy, it comes from a perversion of Islam formed by Al Qutb in a Nasserite jail cell in Egypt. And Bin Ladin’s key lieutenant Zawahiri - also an Egyptian - had led a particularly vicious Egyptian terrorist group before he was expelled in the mid 90s and joined Bin Ladin in Afghanistan.

We can learn a lot from the careful work of the 9/11 Commission. In fact, the 9/11 Commission Report may be more valuable in its detailed reporting and analysis of the internal workings of al Qaeda than in its recommendations for overhauling our intelligence apparatus. It is striking that, despite all the efforts we have made to challenge state sponsored terrorism – a war on Iraq, sanctions against Syria, and definition of the “axis of evil” - the Commission found no particular sponsorship of al Qaeda or Bin Ladin by any of the normal suspects; Iran, Iraq, Libya, or Syria.

The Commission had this to say about contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda: “To date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States.” According to the Commission, Secretary Powell fingered Paul Wolfowitz with pushing the Iraq link to terrorism: “Paul was always of the view that Iraq was a problem that had to be dealt with. And he saw this as one way of using this event as a way to deal with the Iraq problem.”

As for Saudi Arabia, the target of so much critical attention in the media, the Commission specifically refuted the allegations in the movie Fahrenheit 9/11 regarding the Administration’s alleged complicity in the departure of Saudis after the attack. At the very least, Michael Moore was guilty of misrepresentation, exaggeration, not checking his facts, and using humor to cloak political propaganda. On the charge of financing terrorism, there is no doubt that individual Saudis, just like individuals from other countries, have been implicated - some wittingly and some not. But the Commission found no evidence of complicity by the government of Saudi Arabia in the financing of terrorism.

This is a problem that the US and the Saudis together are now dealing with but which may be virtually unsolvable. September 11th was estimated to have cost the terrorists $400,000, the truck bombing in Istanbul last November cost less than $40,000 and the attack in Spain this year was estimated by the UN to have cost only $10,000. The cost of terror is going down. And as the 9/11 Commission pointed out:

If al Qaeda is replaced by smaller, decentralized terrorist groups, the premise behind the government’s efforts- that terrorists need a financial support network- may become outdated. Moreover, some terrorist operations do not rely on outside sources of money and may now be self-funding, either through legitimate employment or low-level criminal activity.

On August 31, the New York Times reported: “Al Qaeda no longer needs large sums of money to mount terror attacks and is consequently able to finance its actions in less detectable ways.” This according to the chairman of the United Nations sanctions-monitoring committee.

We are at war with terrorism. Virtually every American accepts this war. But I venture to suggest that very few of the individuals who bought the 9/11 Commission report have actually read it, beyond perhaps skimming the recommendations. And, thus, very few Americans understand who the enemy is and how can we defeat him. The Commission puts it succinctly: “Our enemy is twofold: al Qaeda, a stateless network of terrorists that struck us on 9/11; and a radical ideological movement in the Islamic world, inspired in part by al Qaeda, which has spawned terrorist groups and violence across the globe.” The report describes this network as composed of relatively small cells in some 40 countries in the world - including Europe, the Balkans, and the Caucuses. The network is a loose collection of individuals and organizations with similar philosophies. The system is more like a fraternity of terrorists than a central structure. For this reason, it does not depend on a unified command or even on Osama bin Ladin. It is not at all certain that the capture or termination of Bin Ladin would significantly reduce the threat. In the same way, the capture of Saddam Hussein and his abasement does not seem to have had much impact in halting the attacks on us by his nominal supporters.

These people do not do what they do for the love of Saddam Hussein, or for reverence of Bin Ladin. They appear to be driven by frustration, anger, disappointment and failure in their personal lives. As the Commission pointed out: “Frustrated in their search for a decent living, unable to benefit from an education often obtained at the cost of great family sacrifice, and blocked from starting families of their own, some of these young men were easy targets for radicalization.” I had a young friend in Egypt who was in love with a girl but told me they could not get married. I asked if it was a family problem – “no,” the boy told me, “I don’t have an apartment to take her home to.” He had graduated from an university but hadn’t found a job and could not afford the rent. Under the unwritten rules of tradition in the region, you cannot marry if you don’t have a home to take your bride to.

My friend did not turn to terrorism, but others did. In their frustration they were seduced by ideology and religious fervor- a cause, whether it was Afghanistan fighting the Soviets, Chechnya fighting the Russians, Iraq fighting the Americans, or Arab countries fighting entrenched power.

These ideologues – the neo-Islamists – are known according to the commission as the “takfiri,” an Arabic term meaning “those who define other Muslims as unbelievers.” They represent an ideology that King Fahd of Saudi Arabia defined for the Islamic world last December as non-Islamic - a perversion of Islam and anathema.

No matter how we structure our armed forces or seek to use them in the fight against terrorism, it is not a war that the US Army or Marine Corps can win on their own. And it is not a war that can be fought in one or two countries alone. It is a war that demands the utmost cooperation between all states and the strong and effective diplomacy necessary to win that cooperation. Today, the Russians, as the most recent victim, understand this. The Saudis who have been engaged in open warfare for over a year now against these same terrorists inside the Kingdom understand this. The Egyptians have understood it for many years now. Now we have to understand that we have to make partners out of the states in this hostile region if we are to succeed. In fact, we have to make partners of everyone in order to create a tighter and more effective network of prevention than the terrorists have for attack.

The Commission’s report refers many times to the need for international cooperation to root out terrorism in countries as diverse as England, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Unfortunately, the report did not deal extensively with the role of diplomacy and the need for the United States to make far-reaching changes in the way we face 21st century transnational threats. The tools will have to change as well as the message if we are to break free from 20th century concepts of threats emanating from nation states. And we will need to engage in the same kind of in-depth examination of our diplomatic structure and tools that the Commission has given us for our intelligence apparatus.

Whoever wins our election, the Administration will need to better define for itself, for America, and for the World its approach toward preemption and when unilateral military action is appropriate and necessary. The picture is still murky. And the impression in the region too often is of a deaf bully throwing his weight around with no concern for breakage or damage and no concern for the interests of the people in the region he affects. A Egyptian businessman told me that he was so angry at America’s insensitivity, particularly toward the Palestinians, that he refused to let his family go to McDonald’s, drink Coke, or smoke Marlboros. I told him he was only hurting the Egyptian franchise owners and all the workers who rely on the sale of these products for jobs. He said he understood that, but he could not go to sleep at night unless he did something to express his support for the Palestinians and disappointment with America.

The Administration will need to make it clear that unilateral military preemption is a vehicle of last resort. Yes, we need to reserve the right to engage with superior military force on a unilateral basis if that is the only way to protect our citizens and our basic interests. But we appear to the region to be quite prepared to use our military as a first resort at great cost to them and to us. We need to make it clear that we will make every effort to use bilateral and multilateral diplomacy and partnership to achieve our goals, reserving force for the last resort.

Our diplomatic arsenal has been depleted by over-reliance on our military and our power. Perhaps, because of our power, we have become lazy. Other diplomats have to work to get an appointment with a President or King – I only had to knock on the door. We need to refresh and sharpen our skills. Diplomacy is a lot cheaper than military action and it costs very few American lives.

To succeed we will have to make a much stronger effort to build a community of shared interests with our allies and potential allies. That community may change depending on the issue and the interested parties. The international tools we use may also change. We need a much better evaluation of what international organizations can and cannot do and how we can influence them in advance of crises. International diplomacy takes hard diplomatic work and it is a world of difference from bilateral diplomacy. We generally ignore it or abuse it, particularly when it comes to the UN. Yet the UN is the only place where many small states can be heard - and perhaps even have an impact. It is important to them – it should be important to us.

The Ambassador of Cape Verde, when we were both serving in the Security Council in the early 1990s, had an enormous impact on both the non-aligned and on the proceedings because of his intelligence, his knowledge, and his diplomatic skill in using the international system to the advantage of his country.

We need to learn those skills by buildimg specialties and career specialists into our system supported by legal and substantive advisors to manage our international diplomacy – an interdisciplinary team of professionals, both Foreign and Civil Service whose careers are spent largely in the international arena. They will have to be supplemented with short term outside experts as well as knowledgeable political appointees who can breathe new life into the bureaucracy periodically, reinvent it, and ensure it is consistent with the President’s needs.

On the bilateral side we have to change the emphasis of our diplomats from reporting – a hold over from before the information age. The media combined with clandestine collection already overwhelms Washington with information glut. Our diplomats have to take a far more active role in trying to affect policy in the country to which they are posted, just as some foreign governments do so well in this country. Lobbying within the context of the culture and the country, speeches, outreach to opinion leaders, interviews with the local media - these and other mechanisms are far more relevant skills today than economic and political reporting, which is always second guessed and seldom makes it above the desk level in Washington.

The President called for a more humble foreign policy before the last election – despite his call we have exhibited hubris. We do not need to pay a price in relations with specific countries to force them to support our objectives. Instead, we need to have a much better picture of the political impediments others face, particularly in democracies, so that we do not force them into a stark choice between us and their own populations. Then we need to have the skills to manipulate their opinion and political structure to answer, at the very least, our minimal needs.

We need to take seriously the concerns of others even when we are unable, or think we are unable, to help find a solution. The extraordinary thing is that we don’t always have to reach a successful conclusion to gain the respect of the region – we only have to prove that we are really trying. That has certainly been the case with the Palestinian problem over the past thirty-five years. But to walk away from the problems which the region holds dear, as we have done on the Palestine issue, is to invite the enmity of every Arab.

We have to move beyond the cold war mentality of a confrontation of nation states and building alliances. While we will continue to face traditional threats from nation states, transnational threats and asymmetric warfare are equally if not more important for our future security. Invading Iraq and Afghanistan may, in the long run, solve some problems with those countries, but it will not solve the problem of terrorism.

We do not need to be seen to be running the world. We need to give others the pride of place and leadership to lower our profile and increase our chances of success – let others take the lead for us while we guide their efforts from behind.

To retool our diplomacy will cost money – but it will not cost the $200 billion the Iraq war has run us thus far and we are still counting. A reorganization and reinvention of our traditional tools of diplomacy will require imagination and the courage to break the mold of the past. Ambassadors like me will have to leave the comfort zone of tradition and be willing to take risks as we engage more actively in the affairs of others and go to the margins and at times beyond the margins of acceptable diplomatic behavior. As an Ambassador I would prefer taking those risks if it means I can save us from military intervention and the cost in lives that can entail.

If we can do all these things, then and only then will it make sense to retool our public diplomacy and convey a face to the world that people can look up to and freely embrace. And only then will we gain the broad international public support we will need to defeat al Qaeda and defeat terrorism.