Mid-East press sees 9/11 goodwill wasted

Arabic and Iranian newspapers voice general suspicion that the US administration has wasted the international goodwill generated by the 9/11 attacks by pursuing counter-productive policies in the intervening four years.

But an Egyptian paper sees the increased emphasis on democracy as a welcome side-effect of the attacks, and a Lebanese commentary focuses on the perceived failure of non-violent Islamists to confront the al-Qaeda approach.

Saudi Arabia's Al-Watan

Even though the whole world condemned the 11 September attacks and supported the US campaign in Afghanistan to uproot the Taleban and their allies, it is not permissible for the US to take advantage of this international support and brand all those who oppose its policies as terrorists.

Saudi Arab News

The world reacted with massive sympathy to the 9/11 atrocity. Washington squandered that sympathy completely when it invaded Iraq on trumped-up evidence. Once again, however, the world has rallied to the US in the wake of the ruin caused by Katrina. When tempers have finally cooled, dare we hope that Americans will have learned the lesson, however incredible to their insular self-view, that even a superpower needs the support and good will of others?

UAE's Gulf News

The journey since 9/11 has been more difficult than anyone would have dared predict in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. There is a sense of deep unease at the direction the Bush White House is taking. The unilateral stance, the snubbing of the international community, the go-it-alone attitude, the abject failure to catch Osama Bin Laden, the inability to stabilise Iraq, the inability to even guarantee an electricity supply for Baghdad. All these unresolved issues have left a question mark hovering over the Bush administration. But most serious of all is the goodwill that has been spent so callously by the White House.

Qatar's Al-Watan

The hegemonic policy of violence that the US administration has adopted in the past four years has not succeeded - it has doubled and extended the danger of international terrorism.

Lebanon's Al-Mustaqbal

Four years after the 11 September events in the US, one may safely say that the US and global war against so-called "Islamic terrorism" has not achieved the desired results. It has produced more terrorist operations in the world and allowed al-Qaeda to spread to new countries and regions, but in return it has exposed the great predicament that Islamist movements and forces face. They have not succeeded in presenting an Islamic project to take the place of al-Qaeda's scheme of confronting the US and the West.

Egypt's Al-Misri al-Yawm

The 11 September attacks have produced many negative results and losses for the Arab and Islamic world. On the other hand, they have provided Arabs and Muslims with long-term gains, some of them unexpected, such as the imposition of democracy the Western secular, liberal way. However, this came about in the shape of self-produced internal reforms.

Iran's Siyasat-e-Ruz

It must be asked whether the act of revenge on Afghanistan and Iraq on the pretext of combating terrorism was genuine or an attack on the region's oil resources and an attempt to implement a new world order. The 9/11 incidents were the beginning of the development of terrorism in the world, and what has been done so far to combat terrorism has added fuel to the fire of violence and war in the region.

Iran's Iran News

Many believe that the US used and abused 9/11 by invading our two neighbours without having a real clue about "why". The Bush Administration do not realize that their military actions in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere have only intensified anti-American hostility in Arab Muslim countries.

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