I agree with ZS' Break away from sterile anti-Americanism that TFP's Arab regimes use anti-Americanism to divert attention' is well written and very insightful.

The writer is also subtle, stopping short of analysing the ultimate issue, and that is, why Arab regimes could be so successful with their people in being double faced, i.e. publicly whip up anti-Americanism and while publicly opposing the impending war in Iraq, could quietly provide facilities to the Americans to launch it.

TFP hinted about the answer when he commented in his last paragraph, "Anti-Americanism is a also a useful way to disparage a set of attractive ideas linked to the US, such as political freedom, pluralism, women's rights, that might otherwise take hold. In this sense, anti-Americanism becomes a weapon against the ideals of liberal democracy itself".

This then is the crux of the problem - whether the tenets of Islam as taught to and practiced by Arab Muslim constituencies may be reconciled with and find accommodation or compatibility with the ideals of liberal democracy, secularism and modernity - or vice versa.

I would, at the outset, point out the immediate divergent positions between Islamic philosophy o­n o­ne hand and liberal democracy, secularism and modernity as known in the West o­n the other.

The West believes in governance by consent of the people expressed through the ballot box of elected representatives in Parliament promulgating secular laws o­n the premise of sovereignty of the people. In many Arab Islamic regimes laws are promulgated by Islamic scholars through revealed guidance of the Almighty.

Syariah laws derive legitimacy from sovereignty of God and unlike in the West, the sovereignty of people through elected representatives.

The West believes in secular laws; the separation between religion and state, public and private spheres. The West believes in dynamic capitalism worshipping the Money God which Muslims consider crass materialism and alienation from God.

Liberal democracy that extols individual freedom including freedom of private sexual behaviour between consenting adults is proscribed in the Middle East. The fight for equality for women, the ideal of monogamy itself is contrary to the patriarchy and polygamy practiced in Arab and other muslim countries.

Islamic precepts like 'ummah' coalesce Muslim solidarity whenever any Muslim regime is perceived "victimised" by America. This overrides all other considerations and priorities. 'Jihad' provides the justification to fight perceived Western infidel transgression into and influence over Muslim affairs, lands, and appropriation of oil wealth and corruption of moral values.

The dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been reduced in simple symbolic terms of American support for the enemy of Islam, since Palestinians are predominantly Muslims. Globalisation is but a ruse to establish Western and secular hegemony worldwide.

English language, the cultural marker, competes to undermine Arabic, as a vehicle to impart religious values. Hollywood films and the Internet conspire to disseminate secular decadent values.

World order is contested between the two visions and America is easy to hate for using its technological superiority in weaponry to assert its world order and worldview. Calling a spade a spade, the ideological divide is stark and clear that it provides ample material to Arab regimes to whip up anti-Americanism amongst their Muslim constituencies to distract them from the failure of proper governance.

Unless these seemingly irreconcilable positions of thought are admitted and unless a bridge can be constructed by intellectuals of both schools of thought to reconcile and explain away the conflicting precepts between Islamic and Western jurisprudence, conflicts of the nature looming in the Middle East or elsewhere, sporadic attacks of the sorts happening o­n Sept 11 and in Bali will not stop.