Barbarians at the Gate

By now, you've probably heard of Mitt Romeny's recent speech on Hezbollah. At a town hall meeting in Iowa last Friday, Mitt Romney offered a controversial twist on his usual stump speech when he held up Hezbollah as a model for the effectiveness of using social services as a way to win hearts and minds. “Did you notice in Lebanon what Hezbollah did? Lebanon became a democracy some time ago. And while their government was getting underway, Hezbollah went into southern Lebanon and provided health clinics to some of the people there and schools. And they built their support by having done so,” Romney said. “That kind of diplomacy is something that would help America become stronger around the world and help people understand that our interest is an interest toward modernity and goodness and freedom for all people of the world.”

Though I'm fervently anti-Hezbolallh and anti- all those immoral southern Lebanese who are the biggest welfare kings and queens robbing Iranians of their national wealth, I think Romney gets it. The message (while very ill-worded) is actually a valid point: The “social services” (building schools and hospitals, etc.) approach is very important in winning the PR battle, and the hearts and minds of the locals.

But it needs to be done right.

The US actually does quite a bit in aid and help in Lebanon, Iraq, and other Arab countries. But a lot of that gets lost in the rhetoric and grandiose speeches.
Just yesterday I read a couple of stories on Naharnet about the US financing some water project in South Lebanon and the EU donating 5.5M dollars to the Nahr Al Bared refugees.
But no one ever talks about that. And what’s even more annoying is that often, the recipients of this aid act entitled and complain about the very people who are giving them aid (calling them great evil satans and what have you).
Mitt Romney does not want America to be more like Hezbollah, he wants America to be more like Iran which is pulling the strings for Hezbollah.

In principle I agree with Romney that the Hezbollah franchise --of which Hamas in Palestine and Mahdi Army in Iraq are examples--is insidiously a raging success as Karim Sadjapour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (director of Carnegie Iran Initiative), points out in a piece at IHT:

Karim Sadjadpour

Tehran has generously armed and funded militant groups ever since the country's 1979 Islamic revolution. As opposed to the Soviet Union, however, today Iran's preferred vehicle of choice to spread its power and influence throughout the Middle East is, ironically, democratic elections. Though Iran's clerical rulers refuse to hold free and fair elections at home, the strong electoral showings of Hamas in Palestine, the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Shiite co-coreligionists in Iraq, has Tehran confident that their Islamist friends have won the battle for the region's hearts and minds, while Western-oriented liberals are in retreat. In the words of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, "Today, if a referendum is held in any Islamic country, the people will vote for individuals supporting Islam and opposing the United States."

In a twisted Machiavellian way it’s kind of brilliant and if U.S wants to make headway in Iraq or anywhere else it needs to learn to use the same tools that it's enemy is using, or at least learn to understand and counter them.

All USAID projects in the Middle east have a large sign that says “Offered by the people of the United States Of America”. Still, it does not t work because it gives the impression that the US is trying to bribe the people.

It’s a complex combination of trust and generosity that can pull loyalty off. And trust leaves a lot to be desired. How to build this trust again matters. It takes human and personal contact ; learning of other's struggles, aspirations and dreams ;teaching them who we are as Americans (instead of anti-Americanism propaganda they are taught by the extremists), sharing with them what we hope and aspire for and how our democracy works, and genuine willingness and interest in getting to know other cultures and sincere interface with people of other nations. We live in a globalized world where people and cultures are bound to collide. How we manage this collision, will make the difference between living in peace or constant conflagration of war and carnage. We cannot afford to want to be isolated or left alone anymore. What happens is Lebanon, Iran, Palestine, Iraq, or Afghanistan is going to effect all of our lives personally albeit indirectly in so many unimagined ways.

We must win the ideological and propaganda war if we are to save Western Civilization from the barbarians at the gate.