Muslim fears

Andrew Sullivan exculpates George Bush:

The paranoia among many Muslims with respect to American foreign policy is not, I think, fair. Nor do I think Bush intended Iraq to end up compounding the problem rather than alleviating it.

On the first point, I couldn't disagree more strongly.

We have a saying down in Texas. "Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you."  But let's invert that a bit here: "Just because they're not out to get you, doesn't mean you shouldn't be paranoid about them." This could be a projection problem. Neither I nor any of my friends have anything like ill will for Muslims, and I'm sure Andrew doesn't either and it's nice to imagine that Muslims use the intentions of people like us to guide them to their conclusions about American foreign policy. Unfortunately, what's actually guiding them to their conclusions is American foreign policy. Which--whether ill intentioned or just stupid--is in fact something Muslims have every reason to worry about.

This brings us to the second point. Plenty of people on the right--particularly ones who have come around to criticizing the president--spend precious time defending his intent as it pertains to matters that he's screwed up. And at the same time, plenty of people on the left devote precious time to attacking Bush's intent as it pertains to those same matters. Some call him evil. And while all decent people agree that that's true of at least Dick Cheney, I'm not sure what intent has to do with anything outside of perhaps investigating Bush (or Cheney or whomever) for the reasons for particular screw ups. The important point is that--whether out of evilness or incompetence--he's screwed everything up.

But the consequence is real and measurable, in terms of global Muslim opinion. And occupying a Muslim country indefinitely doesn't help.

That's the spirit!