If and when military strikes extend beyond Afghanistan's borders to other countries that harbor terrorists - and a widespread conflict develops - the US will be left alone to battle anti-Western sentiment, according to political science professor Malik Mufti.
Mufti, a Muslim who teaches courses on international relations and the politics of the Middle East, spoke at last night's panel discussion, "Doing the Right Thing: US Options in the War on Terrorism."
If anything, the panel demonstrated that there is no easy solution to this conflict, no single definitive measure that will satisfy both US interests and the rest of the world's - particularly those of the extremists themselves.
Mufti's assessment was one of three at the event, at which speakers never once forgot the US strategic interests in the Islamic world. Tony Smith, the Cornelia M. Jackson Professor of Political Science, discussed economic solutions, and Political Science Professor Rob Devigne gave the situation a historical context.
Although President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have met with many world leaders to develop a coalition to encourage international cooperation, Mufti predicts a unilateral war fought by the US with help from Britain.
Britain is expected to be the only country that will be able to weather the entire dispute without encountering conflicts of interest as the US takes military action outside of Afghanistan. US officials told the UN Monday that attacks against other countries might be necessary.
Even traditional US allies could not be expected to counter their own interests in the Middle East, Mufti said. Companies in Russia and China, for instance, have signed deals with Iraq for oil production initiatives which would take effect if sanctions imposed after the Gulf War are lifted.
"There is this illusion of a general consensus against terrorism," Mufti said.
Support from Muslim countries is even more fragile, and some analysts have said that targeting a country such as Iraq would surely shatter Arab support for the US campaign.
"Whatever is going to be done has to be largely on our own," Mufti said.
Mufti said that for each mission, the US could work to build international cooperation. But as the military operation moves from one country to the next, new allies will be found as others abandon the effort.
When Mufti dismissed multilateral cooperation, some students left the discussion. Junior Samantha Diamond "nearly fell out of [her] chair."
"It seems to go against everything we've been doing for the past 30 years," she said.
After the panel, Mufti explained to her that that policy should drive coalition-building among countries, not the other way around. He criticized America's recently subdued attitude towards the Russian war in Chechnya, which helped garner Moscow's support for counter-terrorism efforts.
"Options" may not have been the most appropriate word to describe last night's panel - the three speakers did not present a smorgasbord of "either-or" alternative responses, and most of the panelists appeared to agree with each other.
"I think it was very realistic," said Leila Fawaz, the Issam M. Fares Professor of Lebanese and Eastern Mediterranean Studies and Director of the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies.
As for specific solutions, the speakers could not come up with many.
"The resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict will strengthen the support of Muslim moderates," Mufti said. Professor Smith added that the policy should be reconciled, "whether it looks like caving into terrorists or not."
But all of the panelists agreed that a resolution would not dissolve the current conflict, because its roots extend beyond the situation in the West Bank. And Mufti said that the US should not leave the Persian Gulf either.
"In every era, some group has emerged to challenge orthodox Islam," Mufti explained. "This phenomenon is not new."
He said the US needs to look at "what can be done to reduce the potency" of bin Laden's Al Queda and similar organizations that are bound to appear in the future.
Doing so will require a long term effort of the sort that US foreign policy makers have traditionally shied away from.
"If they overthrow the Taliban, capture bin Laden and leave Afghanistan," Mufti said, "it will be a defeat."
A defeat because, in many ways, it would repeat the events following the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, when the US helped oust the Russians and left the Taliban to take over.
Ultimately, the panelists said, much of the anti-US sentiment stems from the internal political situation in countries where anti-American sentiment runs high. Often oppressed, people in those countries cannot help but resent the US.
To change that, Mufti said there need to be solutions as radical as nation-building. Borders in the Middle East and eastward are strained, he said, and countries need to be separated or amalgamated to ease internal conflict.
"We are never going to be safe," Mutate said. "We have to learn to take precautions."
Smith addressed the security issue during his 15-minute talk. He took issue with air transport in particular.
"We are far too dependent on air transportation," he said, and suggested creating high-speed, rail networks in areas such as the northeastern corridor. From an anti-terrorism perspective, trains are much safer than airplanes. For one, they cannot be driven into buildings.
He said the cost of operating and developing a rail network could be financed by increased taxes on gasoline, as in countries like France where the rail network is renowned for its efficiency.
But he is not confident that such changes will be implemented, especially with the current Republican administration and the inevitable lobbying of the airline and trucking sectors for which rail would present new competition.
He also suggested instituting national identification cards. "[They] would not free us from all problems, but it would certainly help."
"Personal liberty would not be infringed upon but national security would be enhanced."
Devigne offered less specific solutions to the problem, but rather a historical perspective. He explained that within Islam, fundamentalists are in conflict with people trying to develop a contextual, modern interpretation of the religion.
But the current revival, he said, is a critical part of Islam. It also dictates eradication of outside influences - an effort Osama bin Laden supposedly tried to further on Sept. 11.
In a videotaped response to Sunday's strikes on Afghanistan, bin Laden said: "neither the United States nor he who lives in the United States will enjoy security ... all the infidel armies leave the land of Mohammed."
The land of Mohammed includes Saudi Arabia, a country home to many of Islam's most sacred religious sites, and, thanks to its oil reserves, subject to strong American influences.
"The road to Mecca is through Washington and New York City in the United States," said Devigne as he explained a literal interpretation of the Koran, Islam's religious text.
"[In that sense], I don't think bin Laden is completely wrong," he said.
Even if bin Laden is captured, none of the participants expect such fundamentalist notions to go away.
Students in attendance said their interest was piqued by the panelists' speeches.
"It wasn't the normal things you would hear from mass media," said sophomore Justin Krypel.
"America needs to protect itself," he said. "I don't think it's the role of the US to police the world but we have to be able to intervene when it's in our interests."
