Trump’s executive disorder: how ‘Muslim ban’ undermines the US in Asia
US president’s block on travellers from seven Muslim countries including Syria and Iraq hands a propaganda coup to Islamic State – and deals a blow to American soft power
President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive order that seals off the borders of the United States to citizens of seven Muslim majority countries may well be lifted in three months, but the damage it inflicts on America’s already tarnished image in the Islamic world is likely to endure far longer.
The newly minted White House administration remains defiant over the immigration curbs introduced on January 27 – defended as necessary to prevent the import of terrorism – even as fury over what has been dubbed a “Muslim ban” mounts at home and abroad.
The order blocks travellers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the US for three months, while also suspending the intake of refugees for four months. American foreign policy and political Islam watchers say the move in one stroke unravels the small but vital gains made by Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama in rebuilding American clout with the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, the bulk of whom hail from Asia.
WATCH: Trump’s refugee ban sparks outrage across United States
Despite lingering discontent in Muslim majority countries over some aspects of Obama’s foreign policy, the former US leader is seen to have made inroads in re-establishing America’s standing in these societies. The image of the world’s sole superpower was marred across the Muslim world in the decade preceding Obama’s eight years in power by President George W. Bush’s unpopular invasion of Iraq in 2003 that was widely seen as illegal.
Experts say Trump’s travel ban emboldens rather than weakens extremist groups like Islamic State and al-Qaeda, as it adds fuel to their radical narratives which paint the US as hell-bent on spearheading a violent reckoning between the Judeo-Christian Western world and Islam.
“The good work of President Obama in building bridges with Muslim countries is in tatters. America is still feared but she is no longer held in high esteem,” said Zaid Ibrahim, a Malaysian former cabinet minister who has led efforts to promote a moderate strand of Islam in the Southeast Asian country.
Peter Mandaville, a former adviser on political Islam at the US State Department, said the order could not “help but harm perceptions of America’s standing in the world”.