magazine’s scope was strictly cultural, the answer eight years ago, on

28 magazine’s scope was strictly cultural, the answer eight years ago, on the heels of the Iraq invasion, usually came down to some combination of the words “America,” “Bush,” and local expletives. Curious about whether that had changed, I repeated that itinerary this summer, conducting a dozen panels in those same four countries, with subjects representing the diversity of the Arab World, from fully covered Persian Gulf oil heiresses to skirt-donning Beirut Christians to democracy-minded Tahrir Square veterans to Casablanca slum kids fending off suicide-bomber entreaties. Their viewpoint again proved surprisingly consistent—and had shifted dramatically from my last go- round. That background narrative, it turns out, drives everything. It’s hard to overstate the Iraq War’s effect on brand America: it fed into Arab insecurities, exploited in turn by regional demagogues, that outsiders are at fault for whatever ails them. At one raucous meeting at a university in Casablanca, which we later dubbed “The Pinata Session,” 120 students eager to tee off on an American, any American, swarmed what was supposed to be a meet-and-greet with two dozen journalism majors, showering us with two hours of prewritten diatribes. Contrast that with my recent visit to Casablanca, where I happened upon a parade of 20,000 protesters, stretched across a half mile, calling for democratic reforms from the autocratic King Mohammed VI. For two hours, the placard-raising marchers chanted in unison— The people of Libya and Syria keep getting killed—they’re not afraid!.... Shakira got a million! (a reference to the singer’s fee at a royal event)...Look, see, the people are scary!—and precisely zero had anything to do with America (or Israel, for that matter). “The consensus 1s this: it’s a Moroccan problem,” Reda Oulamine, a top opposition leader, told me during the march, “and it’s being decided by the Moroccan street.” HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_025024