The Arab World Tunes In

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

The Arab World Tunes In

March 7, 2003
By TOM BROKAW 

One of the most important changes in the Middle East since
the last war against Iraq has been the proliferation of
satellite news services. The small satellite dish is now a
familiar fixture at apartment buildings, cafes and other
public gathering places, distributing news through four
Arabic-language channels.

Al Jazeera, based in Qatar, is by far the most powerful,
with some 35 million viewers. It still reflects an Arab
point of view, but it is far more independent than the old
government-controlled broadcasters that dominated the
Middle East until a few years ago. In addition, CNN has
expanded its own reach. The network estimates it now has
viewers in 10 million households in the region.

As a result of this widespread dissemination of
information, the fundamental structure of Middle East
politics has been altered, if not over-hauled. Today,
political pressure develops quickly and independently from
the ground up, not just from the top down, a dramatic
difference from a decade ago.

I recently spent time in Turkey, Qatar, Kuwait and Jordan
during a period in which the French opposition to war was
heating up at the United Nations and huge antiwar
demonstrations were being held around the world. I was
struck by how swiftly the American position on an Iraqi war
deteriorated on the Arab street, among ordinary citizens
who had followed the developments on their television sets.


The laws of political physics took effect almost instantly.
As public polls reflecting disapproval of American war
policies clicked up to 70, 80 and even 90 percent, leaders
friendly to the United States responded by lowering their
public profiles just as quickly. During that critical week,
I saw no one in the region taking to the air waves to
defend President Bush's policies.

During the same period, the Turkish prime minister,
Abdullah Gul, was bargaining with the Bush administration
on the terms of a deal to accept United States troops. When
I asked him whether the troops would be allowed in, he
said, "Yes." Two days later, after the weekend of global
protests, the Turkish price had gone up. Since then, the
deal has been further imperiled.

Even in Qatar, where the emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa
al-Thani, has made a big bet on his friendship with the
United States, the leadership is not immune to the effects
of Al Jazeera - which the emir himself started.

At a dinner I attended with senior government advisers,
there were a lot of murmurs about the split between the
United States and Europe and the attention it was
generating at the studios of Al Jazeera just a few miles
away. "This is a delicate time," one adviser said.

Communications experts in the Bush administration are aware
of the power of Al Jazeera, and that their point of view is
underrepresented. They appear to be working harder to get
senior officials more face time. Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld made a recent appearance on the network but it was
only his second in two years.

In the meantime, the United States military in the region
is left to contend with the vacuum. One senior war planner
said, bluntly, "We've done a terrible job out here
explaining why we're going after Saddam Hussein." The
absence of that persuasive explanation is even more
conspicuous against the desert-brown and olive-green
backdrop of American military machines and uniformed forces
pouring into the area. The overwhelming image of America on
Persian Gulf television screens these days is a soldier's
face framed by a camouflaged helmet.

Service personnel are well aware of the volatile political
climate in which they could receive their orders to head
for Baghdad. Al Jazeera has made arrangements to accompany
troops so that battlefield action and postwar policies will
be widely televised in the Middle East.

Americans have no doubt about their military superiority or
their preparedness for the hard tasks of desert warfare
against a desperate enemy. But waging and then winning the
communications war is a different proposition. As a
battlefield commander put it, "If we don't get this right,
we'll be here another 10 years."


Tom Brokaw is managing editor of NBC Nightly
News.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/07/opinion/07BROK.html?ex=1048039266&ei=1&en=
17e18ddac3558794



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