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When President Clinton was actively engaged in trying to find a fair solution to the Palestinian problem, before we had invaded Iraq and before we had reacted to Islam in the post 9/11 period, America was respected and liked in that part of the world. Even after the failure of Camp David, when I was dispatched by Sandy Berger to talk to every Arab leader with whom we had relations, I found disappointment that we had not succeeded, praise for our efforts and particularly the President’s efforts, hope that we would continue them, and willingness to work with us to help find solutions. 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. For never in my thirty-five years of service to America in the Middle East have I seen our stock so low.

Pat Buchanan 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.”

In Jordan, probably our best Arab friend, 93% 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% 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%. 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% of all Jordanians and 66% of Moroccans said that attacks on our servicemen in Iraq were justified. 86% of Jordanians and 74% 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. We may be able to pacify the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan – let us hope so. But no matter how many soldiers we invest in these wars, soldiers alone cannot win the war on terrorism. Only partnership with the people of the region, as well as with the world at large, can win that war.

Since I left Egypt in 1997, after my tour as Ambassador, I have kept in touch with many of my Egyptian friends. They are in the upper class – the traditional friends of America – the businessmen, academics, politicians and government people. 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 that even the State Department Human Rights Reports would have to categorize as torture, military tribunals without adequate legal council. We wanted to follow your example--not to have you follow ours.” These are statements 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 could our Ambassadors raise such human rights concerns today?

I don’t agree with Pat Buchanan that we may have ignited a war of civilizations – at least not yet. But if we are to win support for our war on terrorism, first we will have to distinguish between the terrorists and the Arabs – 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. The Chechens happen to be Islamic, but they engage in terrorism for a nationalist ideology. The Palestinians can be Christian or Islamic. Some sacrifice themselves for national aspirations – others sacrifice for what they believe is religious purity. There is 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.

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 9/11 or al Qaeda by any of the normal suspects; Iran, Iraq, Libya, or Syria.

With regard to supposed cooperation and contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda, the Commission had this to say: “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.”

The Commission did indicate possible facilitation of transit for the terrorist by Iran, but no implication in the plot against the Pentagon or the World Trade Center.

This is not to say that Iran and Syria are guilt free when it comes to terrorism – but their crimes do not appear to be linked to al Qaeda or to attacks on the United States. Their efforts have been directed toward Israel through Hezbollah and Hamas. This terrorism is just as unacceptable, but the point is that even if we could solve the Palestinian and Arab-Israel problem, we would not solve the al Qaeda problem. Even if Iran and Syria ceased to exist tomorrow, we would not solve the al Qaeda problem. They are two different problems, they require two different solutions and, above all, if we are serious about the war on terror, they require equal efforts on the part of our government.

We are at war with terrorism. Virtually every American accepts this war. But I venture to suggest that very few of the many who bought the 9/11 Commission report have actually read it, beyond perhaps skimming the recommendations. And thus very few Americans understand who is the enemy 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 in Europe, the Balkans and the Caucasus. 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. It draws its key directors from virtually every Islamic state - the Moroccans, for example, who attacked in Spain and the polyglot individuals who were involved in the planning of September 11. For this reason, it does not depend on central direction or even Osama bin Laden. It is not at all certain that the capture or termination of bin Laden 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 in the case of Iraq, or for reverence of Bin Laden with al Qaeda. 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 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. They were seduced by ideology and religious fervor- a “cause” - whether it is in Afghanistan fighting the Soviets, Chechnya fighting the Russians, Iraq fighting the Americans, or Arab countries fighting entrenched power.

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. 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 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, understand this. The Egyptians have understood it for many years now. Now we have to understand that we have to make partners of the states in this hostile region if we are going to succeed.

But we are unlikely to find partners in states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia so long as we ignore reality and facts and rely on the criticism of vested interests with a stake in undermining our relations for their own purposes. For example, the 9/11 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. To put it mildly, 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 as 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 which we and the Saudis are now dealing with together but which may be virtually unsolvable. September 11th was estimated to cost the terrorists $400,000, the truck bombing in Istanbul last November cost less than $40,000, and the attack in Spain was estimated by the UN to have cost only ten thousand dollars. The cost of terror is going down. 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.”

The New York Times quoted the chairman of the United Nations sanctions-monitoring committee on August 31 as saying, “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.”

These terrorist 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 publicly to the Islamic world last December as un-Islamic, a perversion of Islam and anathema.

The Commission report refers many times to the need for international cooperation to root out terrorism in countries as diverse as England, Russia, Saudi Arabia and even 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 the 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 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.

An 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. 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 seem to people in the region to be quite prepared to use our military as a first resort at great cost to us and to others. We need to make it clear that we will make every effort to use bilateral and multilateral diplomacy 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 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 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, therefore, 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 the non-aligned and on the proceedings because of his intelligence, knowledge and diplomatic skill in using the international system to the advantage of his country. We need to learn those skills, build 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 largely spent in the international arena. They will have to be supplemented with short term outside experts as well as knowledgeable political appointees who can breath 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 holdover 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, making speeches, reaching out to opinion leaders and using the local media are far more relevant skills today than reporting and analysis that 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 - 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 have to move beyond the cold war mentality of a confrontation of nation states and alliances. We will continue to face traditional threats, particularly in the area of proliferation, but transnational threats and asymmetric warfare are equally important as immediate challenges. 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 help guide their efforts from behind.

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 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.

Retooling our diplomacy will cost money – but it will not cost the $200 billion the Iraq war has run us thus far and 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 risk to American lives.

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 partnership and public support we will need to defeat al Qaeda and defeat terrorism.