Opinion

The truth about the riots — and the US

More than three years ago, Barack Obama, the new president of the United States, traveled to Istanbul and Cairo to promote rapprochement with Islam. Suggesting that we live “at a time of great tension between the United States and Muslims around the world,” he implied that Americans deserve most of the blame. Now he intended to adopt a low profile — and (we later learned) when obliged to act, to only lead from behind.

The results of that strategy appear to be . . . mixed.

The latest Pew survey of Muslim opinion, conducted in June, shows little change in levels of popularity of the US compared to when Obama came bearing gifts.

The latest series of protests, occasioned by an anti-Islam film, may give the impression that the Muslim world is experiencing a major surge of anti-Americanism — but the real picture is more nuanced.

These protests did not draw large crowds, as promised by Egyptian Salafist leader Yussuf Borhami and Iran’s “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei had promised.

The Cairo protests drew a few hundred people — a meager show compared to the million-strong crowds of the Arab Spring.

And President Mohammed Morsi went on TV to warn against transforming protests over the film into “an attack on the United States’ people or government.”

Muslim Brotherhood leader Khairat al-Shater went further, warning that “some elements” were trying to use the controversial film as an excuse for undermining Egypt’s security.

And Cairo journalist Adel Hammoudah was even more trenchant. “Why protest over a film about Mohammed?” he demanded. “Mohammed was not an Egyptian.”

In Tehran, a rent-a-mob of around 40 men tried to attack the Swiss Embassy, and plans for nationwide marches were quietly called off.

Khamenei’s call for revenge attacks on US targets was challenged by part of the media inside Iran itself. In an editorial on Sunday, the newspaper Sharq rejected Khamenei’s claim that the controversial film had been made on orders from the US government.

“Had American leaders had any knowledge of that film, they would have at least informed their personnel and diplomats in Arab and Islamic countries to take grater care,” the editorial said. “That film has absolutely nothing to do with America and the White House knew nothing of its making.”

Unable to whip up “holy rage” in Iran, Khamenei ordered Hezbollah to organize a Lebanese demonstration so that the so-called “film Jihad” not be monopolized by Sunni Muslims. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah spoke against the film four days after the controversy had started. Yesterday, he organized a march in south Beirut’s Shi’ite neighborhoods.

In Khartoum, Sudan, around 100 men were allowed to ransack the German Embassy before being carried off 15 miles in government trucks for another dance of rage around the US Embassy.

In some of the countries where protests took place — notably Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia — violence has been part of daily life for decades; the latest anti-US outbursts there should be seen as routine events.

The largest protest outside the Muslim world brought around 150 people in front of the US Embassy in London. But (as also in Paris) most protesters were non-Muslim members of the antiwar movement.

Some Muslim writers have lashed out against the protests as “misplaced” or “ill-intentioned.” Writing in the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, Tareq Alhomayed laments what he believes is “focusing on an offensive film” while Bashar al-Assad continues to massacre the Syrian people.

He points out Iran’s hypocrisy in opposing any depiction of the Prophet, even as the regime is producing a bio-pic of Mohammed’s life. Iran, Alhomayed reports, has “employed an Iranian actor to play the Prophet’s role for the first time in history, in order to provide an account that is contrary to that of the Sunni doctrine.”

The United States does not have more enemies in the Muslim world than it did four years ago. Anti-Americanism will always provide the ideological backbone of a chunk of the Muslim political elite.

But America may have fewer friends than four years ago. The reason is America’s perceived weakness and Obama’s alleged intention to preside over a US strategic retreat.

The number of those who blame America for almost all of contemporary Islam’s problems hasn’t grown. But those who regard America as part of the solution has plummeted.