Global arrogance

The United States has historically faced accusations of arrogance, dating back to the Vietnam War period.[6] United States was first described as "the Capital of Global Arrogance" by Iranian students.[7] however, Iranians are not the only ones who use this term. Other nations are the French, Germans, Japanese, Indonesians, Indians, and Russians.[2][5] Iran continues to celebrate the anniversary of the capture of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 as "National Day of Campaign against Global arrogance."[8][9]

The term "global arrogance" is sometimes used in Iranian newspapers to denounce the US foreign policy.[10] The stereotype of the West as arrogant is mainly used in conservative newspapers, but is less frequent in reformist newspapers.[11] After the 2003 war in Iraq accusations of arrogance against the US increased.[12]

According to Janie Leatherman, the concept of global arrogance is not limited to alleged American arrogance, but encompass a full range of elites or "top dogs" of the global political and economic system. They are embedded, Leatherman writes, in the various networks and layers of the global governance system - from key institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the G-7, and leading countries to the major northern NGOs of global civil society. Global arrogance, like power, according to Leatherman, moves and flows throughout this system; therefore, Leatherman continues, it is difficult to identify the source of arrogance.[13] Arrogance, according to Weber, refers to politics, not the people; believing that others should listen, understand, agree and act in a way that policies show; and, Weber believes, it is not a problem because emotions get hurt; It is problem because it is a "disposition counterproductive to competing effectively in this 21-century global market of ideas."[14]

About the alleged global arrogance of the United States, Diana Zoelle,[lower-alpha 2] and Jyl J. Josephson[lower-alpha 3] write that arrogance is usually conceived in the context of foreign policy, but US domestic poverty policies, they believe, could be a sign of a failed hegemony, a government that is unable, they say, to provide basic resources in terms of wage jobs and social services for a large part of its population. The costs of the International "war on terror", Zoelle and Josephson believe, are used to justify the reduction of social spending at home.[17]

In 2021, Foreign Policy accused China of global arrogance, arguing that the Chinese were repeating American mistakes.[18]

According to Daniel E. Price, Globalization is considered in many countries of the Islamic world as a tool for American domination that must be resisted.[3] In her book, The Soul of Justice, Cynthia Willett writes: "We fear Islamic fundamentalists because they threaten violence in the name of unyielding principles. We refuse, however, to understand how economic and cultural forces of powerful nations may damage citizens of weaker nations by destroying their culture and livelihood, and by rendering their nations dependent upon foreign powers." She quotes Thomas Friedman, who, according to her, provides insight into anti-Western sentiment by pointing to the particular zeal behind Western discourse, as saying:[4]

We Americans are the apostles of the Fast World, the prophets of the free market, and high priests of high tech. We want the 'enlargement' of both our values and our Pizza Huts. We want the world to follow our lead and become democratic and capitalistic, with a Web site in every pot, a Pepsi on every lip, [and] Microsoft Windows in every computer." Is it clear who "fundamentalists" are? I am not so sure. The journalist continues: "No wonder, therefore, that resentment of America is on the rise globally." Sometimes we tend to see exaggerated in the Other what we most deny in ourselves.[4]

According to Thomas Friedman, globalization leads to global arrogance based on soft power (culture, technology and economy) rather than occupation and imperialism. US efforts to avoid international scrutiny and refuse to sign international treaties on global warming or the International Criminal Court, according to Barber, are viewed as signs of arrogance and imperialist intentions.[3] Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Islamist scholar, argues that "globalization means the imposition of US hegemony. Any state that rebels or sings to a different tune must be punished by blockades, military threats, or direct attack as happened with Sudan, Iraq, Iran and Libya." The imposition involves a US culture "based on materialism, self-interest and unrestrained freedoms." Thus, US-led globalization is driven by the "unjustified arrogance and conceit" of the Pharaoh, persecuting humanity to benefit a tiny minority."[19]

Ali Farazmand believes that current global stereotypes against Islam by the US-based government and the media and corporate organizations of large corporations, which are predominantly Christian, have created a global image of Muslims as terrorists and the people of the Middle East as fanatics who should be enlightened by Judeo-Christianity. This ideological, global political propaganda against Islam, according to Farazmand, serves nothing but global arrogance, global religious divisions and enmity between nations, and "promotes the global arrogance of self-declared Christian superiority".[20]

In Iran, people's perception of the USA as a "land of milk and honey" has long been associated with another image of "hostility" and "arrogance".[11] According to the Iranian journalist and lecturer Ehsan Bakhshandeh, most Iranians hate the West not because they are against the Western values, but because they have suffered from hostile Western policies. He explains that the use of the term global arrogance to portray the West can be attributed to the history of Iran-West relations, especially the way Americans have treated Iranians.[11]

Carlos A. Parodi[lower-alpha 4] believes that the dissolution of the Soviet Union gave the United States greater freedom to use military force to defend its interests. He quotes Chomsky as writing; "It should have surprised no one that George Bush celebrated the symbolic end of the Cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, by immediately invading Panama and announcing loud and clear that the United States would subvert Nicaragua's election by maintaining its economic stranglehold and military attack unless 'our side' won".[22] Criticism came from outside the United States too, when Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah spoke of the "incessant struggle between the international forces of arrogance and oppression (represented by the United States, Western powers and Israel) and the oppressed nations, which comprise the Arab and Muslim Worlds and more generally the Global South." He says that international arrogance does its best to weaken Muslims so that Islam does not become a powerful force in the world and to "sow discord among Muslims."[23] Ali Khamenei, in a speech in November 1994, said: "when a government does not look up to them [the united states] and refuses to consider them as superpower, then they cannot stand it any longer".[24] Khomeini and Khamenei, according to Leatherman, saw the West as a source of colonial and neo-colonial domination, whose supremacy was to the detriment of Third World countries.[25] Benjamin Barber believes that US efforts to ensure domestic prosperity seem like a justification for repressing and exploiting others.[3] The US military invasion of the Islamic world - two invasion in Iraq, one in Afghanistan along with supporting the king and dictators of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia etc, according to Price, are efforts to control the value of the region's natural resources, namely oil, for its benefit.[3]

• Hegemony
• Great Satan

• Leatherman, J.; Webber, J., eds. (2005). Charting Transnational Democracy: Beyond Global Arrogance. US: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781403981080.