We had global goodwill after 9/11 and squandered it in Iraq. Rage and vengeance is the wrong strategy post-Paris, too
BY SANDY TOLAN
On Sept. 14, 2001, 800 million Europeans in 43 countries observed three minutes of silence for the victims of 9/11. From Europe and around the world came pleas that the U.S. not squander this global goodwill. I recall the words of my brother John, a French-American Medieval scholar and co-author of “Europe and Islam: Fifteen Centuries of History,” who wrote then from France: “This massive unity of public opinion and political will provides the United States with a tremendous opportunity and risk: the chance to capitalize on this good will and the danger of taking action that will splinter the forces that stand with us now.”
![George W. Bush and firefighter Bob Beckwith at the World Trade Center wreckage, Sept. 14, 2001; Donald Trump. (Credit: AP/Doug Mills/Carolyn Kaster/Photo montage by Salon)](http://ramallahcafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/bush_trump-620x412_AP-for-Salon.jpg)
George W. Bush and firefighter Bob Beckwith at the World Trade Center wreckage, Sept. 14, 2001; Donald Trump. (Credit: AP/Doug Mills/Carolyn Kaster/Photo montage by Salon)
Of course, we blew it, instead pursuing a foolhardy war under false pretense and prompting a 14-year ongoing nightmare: half a million Iraqi civilians dead, by one estimate, a deep and abiding rage against America and its occupation, and a mighty vacuum in the wake of Saddam Hussein that prompted the rise of ISIS and the biggest global refugee crisis since World War II.
Now, the fury has exploded, again: 129 people dead in Paris at the hands of a twisted ideology forged in a cauldron of rage, disenfranchisement, perverse religious interpretation and cool military calculation. And again, the West is faced with a choice: lash out in vengeance, stigmatize certain immigrants, and seal off the borders, or devise a more measured response in keeping with values that for centuries have led refugees to Western shores.
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