Al-Jazeera did an episode of Behind the News last Saturday on Bush's silly big speech.    Jumana al-Nimour hosted, with Shibley Telhami, Mohammed al-Sayid Said (al-Ahram Center), and Daniel Pipes the guests.

The first half of the segment focused on the extent to which Bush's domestic political considerations drove the speech.  Telhami emphasized the differences between this speech and prior Bush speeches, including the (in my opinion highly unfortunate) use of the term "Islamofascism", the comparison to Communism, and the attempt to link the struggle in Iraq to the war on terror.  Telhami noted that this came as an attempt to shore up declining public support for Bush's foreign policy.  The Egyptian guest Mohammed al-Sayyid Said put even more emphasis on the domestic political considerations.   

Pipes strongly disagreed:  the speech had nothing to do with domestic politics.  It should be understood as Bush's wise and convincing attempt to educate Americans, and to explain the realities of the struggle against Islamic extremism to the American people.   Pipes argued that there have been three phases in the American war with radical Islam:  after 1979, after 9/11, and after Bush's October 6 speech.  No, I'm not making this up: he wrote the same thing in this New York Sun op-ed . As I read it, then, Pipes and I basically agree that the speech was "second rate, warmed over wingnut blogging" ... even if he wouldn't call it that.  We also disagree about the speech's importance (Pipes:  the third turning point in America's war with radical Islam since 1979;  me:  likely to rapidly, and thankfully, fade into well-deserved obscurity.)

At any rate, Jumana led a nice little discussion among the three, and nobody shouted.   I was more interested in the second half of the segment, which focused on Bush's attacks on the Arab media.

Jumana began by asking Pipes what he thought about that part.  Pipes responded that this showed the "greatly increased American awareness of what is happening in the Arab media and especially al-Jazeera."  American public opinion, he said, was not happy with what it saw in the Arab media (naming al-Jazeera and, oddly enough, the Palestinian media as his two examples).  Americans didn't like the Arab media's activities related to fighting terrorism, encouraging anti-Semitism, and what it calls the American war "on" Iraq.   Bush's speech, according to Pipes, indicates that the American government is worried about what is in the Arab media, and that the governments and institutions running those media should expect greater American pressure to behave responsibly.  [He does have a point, you know:  it's hard to argue that al-Jazeera doesn't give a platform to extremists when Pipes keeps getting invited back...]

And then Jumana earned her place in the pantheon once again with this delightful, and ever so polite, intervention:

Jumana:  Excuse me,  Mr Pipes, but - concisely - you mean that conspiracy theories are what we are doing right now, for example, with our discussion from multiple points of view, is this what you mean?

Pipes:  All of this discussion is very civilized and constructive, but some elements published in the media aren't like this.

Indeed.  She then turned to Telhami, and asked him about Bush's grouping the disparate elements of Islamist radicalism into a single movement - and to her credit, when she reeled off a list of terrorist attacks from Kenya to Saudi Arabia to Morocco to Indonesia to Turkey to many more, she pointedly included Israel and Natanya in her list.  Telhami agreed that this was a major problem with the speech, that it conflates a wide range of different groups with different goals, and thus did a disservice to attempts to effectively combat terrorism.

Telhami then returned to the media question.   In his own research (which includes extensive public opinion polling, which forms the basis of his forthcoming book ), Telhami said, he found little evidence of a direct relationship between attitudes towards American policies and what people saw on television.  Many people around the world who don't watch al-Jazeera opposed American policies too.   It should be no surprise that I agree with most of these arguments. 

After some more back and forth, the piece wrapped up.  Maybe it's no surprise that al-Jazeera (like me) immediately picked up on those lines about the Arab media, and made that a central topic for debate.  Let's hope that this part of the speech does not, contra Pipes, foreshadow of a return to a confrontational approach to the Arab media.  I don't think it does - I kind of think that the speech will, as I said before, quickly and thankfully recede into obscurity.   But I guess we'll see.

via Abu Aardvark - "AJ: Bush's speech"