Walid Phares: War of Ideas on al Jazeera
By Walid Phares
In a forum along with two Islamist intellectuals on al Jazeera, I told the audience that Thawahiri's tape in reaction to Dr Rice's speech at the American University in Cairo shows that al Qaida is afraid from the spread of Democracy among the youth in the region. The Jihadists resent the doctrines that oppose their ideology, regardless of liking or disliking America. The forum was a 30 minutes-long debate on al Jazeera on Sunday August 7, 2005 with Radouan al Sayid from Beirut and Muntasir al Zayat from Cairo. For a transcript go to al jazeera "Ma War'a al akhbar" (What's Behind the News).
I asked the panel if al Qaida's ideology really represent the Arab and Muslim masses and wondered why doesn't the organization tell the peoples of the region what are its final goals. Will the youth accept a Taliban regime from Morocco to Iraq? On its web, al jazeera underlined the statement: "Thawahiri fears not Dr Rice speech in Cairo, but the impact it would have on the region's youth. Regardless of the fact that they would or would not like America, al Qaida resents that the youth would prefer Democracy over its ideology." Responding to a charge that the US talks about democracy while the regime it support are anti-democratic, I answered that this may have been the case in the past, but Washington in the last few years has been putting pressure on its allies, Saudi Arabi and Egypt in addition to the dictatorships of Iran, Syria and Sudan, etc.
See the text in Arabic or listen to the entire forum. For the Arabic readers, the transcript of the debate would be interesting. For the audio version go to: Audio of the Debate.
Walid Phares
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