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Why They Hate Us
No, it's not our freedoms. Anti-Americanism isn't going away until the U.S.
puts some fairness in its foreign policy.

By Julia E. Sweig

JULIA E. SWEIG is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Her
most recent book is "Friendly Fire: Losing Friends and Making Enemies in
the Anti-American Century."

August 15, 2006

AMERICA'S MORAL standing in the world has precipitously declined since
2001. For starters, blame the Bush administration's go-it-alone tough talk
after 9/11, contempt for the Kyoto accord, war and then chaos in Iraq,
secret prisons in Europe and alleged use of torture at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba. Democrats would have you believe that a new team — theirs — in
Washington would change all this. Not so fast.

Around the world, anti-Americanism is not simply the result of anger about
President Bush's foreign policies. Rather, it is deeply entrenched
antipathy accumulated over decades. It may take generations to undo.

Consider the causes:

• Cold War legacy: U.S. intervention in Vietnam, and covert attempts to
overthrow governments in Iran, Guatemala and Cuba, among others, created
profound distrust of U.S. motives throughout the developing world.
Europeans also disdain these policies and bemoan the cultural coarseness of
Americanization sweeping their continent.

Americans, by contrast, tend to dismiss this side of the Cold War. Gore
Vidal famously referred to this country as the United States of Amnesia.
We're all about moving forward, getting over it, a nation of immigrants for
whom leaving the past behind was a geographic, psychological and often
political act. As the last guy standing when the Cold War ended, in 1989,
we expected the world to embrace free markets and liberal democracy.

• Power and powerlessness: Power generates resentment. But the United
States has lost the ability to see its power from the perspective of those
with less of it. In Latin America, for example, U.S. policies — whether on
trade, aid, democracy, drugs or immigration — presumed that Latin Americans
would automatically see U.S. interests as their own. And when denied
deference, we sometimes lash out, as did Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld when he lumped Germany, a close U.S. ally, with Cuba and Libya
because Berlin opposed the Iraq war.

• Globalization: In the 1990s, our government, private sector and opinion
makers sold globalization as virtually synonymous with Americanization.
President Clinton promised that open markets, open societies and smaller
government would be the bridge to the 21st century. So where globalization
hasn't delivered, the U.S. is blamed.

• What we stand for: Bush is wrong to say that foreigners hate us because
of our values and freedoms. Quite the contrary. U.S. credibility abroad
used to be reinforced by the perception that our laws and government
programs gave most Americans a fair chance to participate in a middle-class
meritocracy. But the appeal of the U.S. model overseas is eroding as the
gap between rich and poor widens, public education deteriorates, healthcare
costs soar and pensions disappear. Most recently, the U.S. government's
seeming indifference to its most vulnerable citizens in the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina further undercut belief in the American social contract.
The immigration debates also have fostered the perception that the U.S. is
vulnerable, hostile and fearful.

Nevertheless, the ideal of the United States as a beacon of justice,
democracy, freedom and human rights still garners grudging respect abroad.
Despite the perverse appeal of anti-Americanism, its proliferation hurts
not only the U.S. but global security. For all the resentments that U.S.
leadership generates, in the absence of an appealing alternative, it
remains a much-desired resource. That's why the U.S. could still get its
global groove back.

But there is no quick fix. Liberals tempted to out-Bush Bush in the battle
against terrorism risk sowing the seeds of a future backlash in the
developing world. The U.S. will be no less powerful in the eyes of
powerless nations if Democrats win control of Congress in November. Harsh
global competition isn't going away either. As a result, the wellsprings of
anti-Americanism will not dry up anytime soon.

But anti-Americanism will begin to ebb if the new watchwords of U.S. policy
and conduct are pragmatism, generosity, modesty, discretion, cooperation,
empathy, fairness, manners and lawfulness. This softer lexicon should not
be construed as a refutation of the use of force against hostile states or
terrorist groups. Rather, a foreign policy that deploys U.S. power with
some consideration for how the U.S. is perceived will gradually make
legitimate U.S. military action more acceptable abroad.

Personalities do matter. And not just the president's. The global
initiatives of private American citizens — Bill Gates, Warren Buffett,
Gordon Moore, Angelina Jolie, Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg — carry
the kind of message that government-sponsored public diplomacy can't match.

And symbols matter too. We should close Guantanamo.

Recovering our global standing will come not only from how we fight or
prevent the next war, or manage an increasingly chaotic world. Domestic
policy must change as well. Steering the body politic out of its insular
mood, reducing social and economic inequalities, and decreasing our
dependence on fossil fuels will help improve our moral standing and our
security.