OF ALL THE FORBIDDING CHALLENGES that now confront the United States in its war against Islamic terrorism, easily the most dangerous is navigating the Muslim emotions surrounding Osama bin Laden and his call to holy war. If we read those passions wrong—if we see others as we see ourselves—we will surely watch the Middle East become even more violently anti-American. In this regard, Secretary of State Colin Powell’s plan to build a "Muslim coalition" of powers behind Washington’s campaign against terrorism will likely do far more harm to us and our Muslim allies than to bin Laden and his Taliban "hosts." The Bush administration understandably wants to avoid being seen as waging a war against Islam, so that Muslims who are publicly on our side, at least in theory, can deflect the "Crusader" charge. The Gulf War coalition, which defines the Middle Eastern experience of so many of the Bush administration’s senior officials, must, they think, be reborn to enhance the legitimacy of America’s war in Arab and Muslim eyes.

Such reasoning is, of course, blind and deaf to both Islamic history and the arguments that bin Laden and other militants are hurling at us. It is one thing to treat the governments of Middle Eastern countries as legitimate in normal, daily diplomacy; it is quite another to view them, or to believe that their citizens view them, as morally legitimate in the much larger sense to which Secretary Powell aspires.

Let us step back in history. The Crusaders survived two centuries (1099-1291) in the Middle East precisely because they often had Muslim allies, in commerce and in war. Saladin, the conqueror of Jerusalem whom the West likes to pair off against Richard the Lionhearted, has become a legend in the region precisely because he overcame the Muslim-state tendency to ally with or ignore the Christian enemy. The Taliban chieftan Mollah Omar, bin Laden, and Secretary Powell are now forcing the Middle East’s dictators and kings, none of whom enjoys the ironclad legitimacy and peace of mind that come only from the ballot box, into an extremely unpleasant historical paradigm.

Bin Laden and his fans will relentlessly put pressure on the fault lines in the Muslim mind. On the offensive, they will continue to underscore the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which they construe as a matter of "Jewish Crusaders" occupying Muslim land—Muslim land being, for bin Laden and in the hearts of most Muslims, all of Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. They will challenge Muslim leaders to compete for the passions of their citizenry, who for the most part live in unjust, disillusioned societies. They will contrast today’s weak, Westernized Arab rulers, who solicit money, weapons, and political support from the West, with the Saladins of the past, who made Christendom tremble. Islamic militants will throw down the gauntlet to Islam’s religious scholars and neighborhood clerics, daring them to denounce anti-Western violence during Friday prayers, where Muslims have always powerfully expressed their collective identity.

It is very unlikely that those Muslims who hate bin Laden and support the United States will become any more pro-American because Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah, Egypt and Jordan’s rulers, are siding with us. It is, however, quite likely that those Muslims who admire bin Laden’s anti-Western resolve, if not necessarily his tactics, will despise the Saudis even more when Washington and its Muslim allies march in lockstep. The "high" Islam of Cairo’s ancient Al-Azhar University and the state-salaried ulama throughout the Middle East will also play right into the militants’ hands if they now fire off, as if on cue from their political overlords, denunciations of bin Laden.
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