By PHILIP TURNER
WASHINGTON, June 13 (UPI) -- After two suicide attacks last month by Sunni Muslims left 27 people dead at mosques in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, thousands flooded streets in protest -- not against suicide bombers or violence -- but instead to attack a U.S restaurant chain, Kentucky Fried Chicken, leaving six workers dead.
Anti-U.S. sentiment has been high in Pakistan since President Pervez Musharraf dumped his Taliban allies and positioned the country with the United States following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the subsequent U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan. Despite the Bush administration's efforts to promote democracy in the Arab world and its financing of radio and television broadcasts aimed at the region, anti-U.S. sentiment remains high -- especially after the alleged desecration of the Koran at the U.S. naval in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where terrorism suspects are detained.
Experts say one reason for this sentiment is that in many Muslim countries the United States is the only target governments will allow people to protest.
"The United States has long been a lightning rod for violence and political protests in the Muslim world," said Jim Phillips, a Middle East Analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank. "Many governments resort to a kind of political deflection in that they deflect popular anger toward the government on to United States policy."
Attempts to protest against their own government often end in violence. Recent anti-government demonstrations in Egypt, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East, resulted in police and security forces beating women who were marching for democracy. Similar incidents were seen over the weekend in Iran where women marched, unlawfully, against their treatment.
"In the historically authoritarian nature of regimes in the Arab world and Central Asia demonstrations need to be government approved," said John L. Esposito, a Georgetown University professor and author of "Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam."
Muslim leaders in the United States say their criticisms of Islamic violence is often ignored in the Muslim world where it is often easier to protest against U.S. policy, even among Washington's allies, than against their own governments.
"Muslims across the world need to be as outraged at Muslim on Muslim violence as they are at American or any Western power's violence toward Muslims," Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations, told United Press International. "There needs to be one standard of outrage."
Esposito said meaningful movements that change societies are unlikely to happen until something changes in many Muslim states.
"Right now people there are caught between a rock and a hard place -- between regulatory governments and their security forces," he said.
Others, however, argue that Americans need to understand why demonstrations across the Muslim world often turn against the United States.
"A lot of people will look at these protests and say, 'The hell with it, they hate us,'" said Akbar Ahmed, the chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington. With the U.S. military fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and stationing troops in other Muslim states, however, Ahmed said U.S. interests in the region are vital.
"We can't simply pack up and leave -- it is not an option. There are 1.3 billion Muslims in the world spread through 57 states. Our whole foreign policy rests with them," he said.
Esposito said anti-U.S. protests are often sparked by problems within Muslim societies.
"In recent years, for instance, the tension between Sunnis and Shiites has exploded and it is not unusual, sadly, to see this kind of slaughter" that happened in Karachi , said Esposito. "Their rage then spills out in a broader context -- and that is often anti-American...toward the Great Satan if you will."
Marvin Weinbaum, of the Middle East Institute, agreed. He said governments often encourage anti-U.S. and Western demonstrations to turn the attention away from themselves and their own problems.
"Protests aimed at the West and the United States are better than on the governments because it allows the people to let off steam in a controlled way," he said.
A study of 16 individual Muslim states by Freedom House, a not-for-profit-organization working to advance the expansion of political and economic freedom, found women are at a significant disadvantage in practically every institution in society. With many deep-rooted authoritarian governments in place, the consensus among some academics is the situation is unlikely to change soon.
"There are good democrats throughout the region that the president (Bush) speaks of, but there are not enough of them," said Weinbaum. "There are not enough of those kinds of people who will get out there and champion something like women's rights with police batons coming down on them.
"And if we're looking for those kinds of changes to happen with some of these governments in place, we're going to be looking for a long time."
The Bush administration says it is taking an active role in working to reform troubled Arab countries politically and economically to promote freedom through its Middle East Partnership Initiative, which supports economic, political and educational reform efforts in the Middle East and North Africa.
In a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies last month, State Department Counselor Philip Zelikow said the Bush administration was taking a forward approach to reforming the Middle East.
"As the president has recognized, 60 years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe," he said. "Because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty ... it would be reckless to accept the status quo."
Phillips, of Heritage, said strides had been made in countries such as Saudi Arabia, where small-scale municipal elections were organized earlier this year, and among Palestinians, who conducted democratic elections.
"The initiative is effective in terms of long-term policy because it puts the United States on the side of the people trying to attain their God-given rights," he said. "In the short term, it is difficult to see major changes because there are many confused situations -- it's really a country-by-country situation."
Still, Ahmed said the U.S. public needs to understand the rules by which the Muslim world plays so it can grasp the kinds of anti-U.S. protests and violence that happen so often.
"To use an analogy, we are playing two different games -- cricket and football -- we must understand both," said Ahmed.
