Michael Doran, of Princeton University, has a good article up in the Wall Street Journal (a for-pay site) entitled “The Iraq Effect”, which run counter to much “received wisdom” concerning the war in Iraq. In it, Doran states that while intense dislike of the US combat in Iraq continues unabated, in much of the Arab and Muslim world, the dislike of Al-Qaeda and its supporters grows daily. In their efforts to see only evil in the Arab world, many American critics (as well as European critics) are failing to note the deliberate changes which they should be applauding.

He also points out that even deeper battles are going on in the region: those to define what it means to be Arab and Muslim.

Whatever Saudis may think of U.S. policies, they first and foremost disagree among themselves about the character of their society. In fact, the Saudis use the debate about America as a proxy for their own conflicts, which at base have little if anything to do with the Bush foreign policy. When Mr. al-Awdah called for jihad against the U.S. in Iraq, he was striking a blow against secular reformers — “Americanizers” — in Saudi Arabia. His enemies, for their part, are using the pages of al-Watan to launch a counterattack to advance their domestic agenda.

The very trajectory of Saudi politics over the last 18 months destroys the thesis that the Sunnis are lining up to join al Qaeda. Anti-Americanism may have soared in the kingdom, but al Qaeda’s fortunes have plummeted. After the fall of the Taliban, the greatest blow that al Qaeda has received has been at the hands of the Saudi security services. Since May 2003, a month after Saddam’s fall, they have arrested hundreds of militants, confiscated huge weapons caches, stemmed the flow of money to al Qaeda, and established formal mechanisms for exchanging intelligence with the U.S. All of this took place, it is important to emphasize, after the exercise of President Bush’s much-maligned policies: It is U.S. “unilateralism” that precipitated the open conflict between al Qaeda and the Saudi regime.

A backlash is developing against unbridled anti-Americanism. Those who argue that the Iraq war has been a great boon to al Qaeda are selectively reading the talk coming out of the Arab world, and paying no attention to its actions. Anti-Americanism is a clever alibi, but hardly a unifying force across the great divides of a society.

Citing the Arabic daily Al-Watan newspaper, Doran comes up with a delicious piece of information concerning one of the signers of the notorious “Letter of the 26″ encouraging jihad against the Americans in Iraq. The duplicity is breathtaking:

A controversy brewing in Saudi Arabia is instructive. Several weeks ago, when the U.S. was gearing up for the assault on Fallujah, Salman al-Awdah, a popular preacher who had close ties to al Qaeda in the ’90s, signed, along with 25 colleagues, a declaration that made fighting the U.S. in Iraq an obligation for able-bodied Muslims. This sly document left it an open question as to whether Iraqis and Saudis were equally obliged to fight. The authors of the declaration wanted to have it both ways — to garner the benefits of association with al Qaeda abroad without suffering any consequences at home.

But many Saudis have grown tired of this game, and are working to expose clerics for playing fast and loose with peoples’ lives. The reformist newspaper al-Watan revealed that Mr. al-Awdah subsequently enlisted the aid of the Saudi security services in order to prevent his son Muadh from joining the jihad in Iraq. Muadh, it seems, had decided with some friends to go and fight America. “God permitting,” he said in a message to his family, “we have an appointment with paradise.” In an effort to prevent him from keeping this date, Mr. al-Awdah contacted Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, number two at the Saudi ministry of Interior. The authorities quickly found the young men, and returned them safely to their families.

Mr. Al-Awdah’s frantic call for help revealed two levels of hypocrisy. First, it shattered his carefully crafted image as a courageous fighter for Islam, a man who speaks truth to power. For someone supposedly independent of the regime, he has cozy ties with the Saudi secret police. Second, it unmasked his true feeling about the anti-American jihad: Let Iraqis kill themselves.

The war that is going on through the Islamic world is one for the heart of Islam. It is decidedly to our benefit, as Americans, to realize just what is happening and to give appropriate support–mostly moral and verbal–to those reformers who are trying to create in their countries the conditions necessary to co-exist with a modernizing world.

[Disclaimer: Prof. Doran came to Saudi Arabia at the invitation of my office in 2003.]