Can the U.S. Stop the Wave of Muslim Protest Targeting Its Embassies? Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah / Reuters Is there anything America can do to stop the wave of often violent demonstrations targeting its embassies, and those of its allies, across the Muslim world this week? The short answer is no; it will have to ride out the rage stoked by opportunists in Muslim capitals looking to profit politically from genuine popular outrage at a film insulting the Prophet Muhammad - and hope that no more diplomats or protesters are killed, further escalating the confrontation. Friday saw protests in countries as far-flung as Sri Lanka and the Maldives, Nigeria and Khartoum, as well as deadly confrontations in Tunis, where three people were killed after the U.S. embassy compound was breached, and in Sudan's capital, Khartoum, where one was killed after a similar breach. But Friday was always going to be a very bad day - as the Muslim day of prayer, it usually marks the zenith of any cycle of pan-Islamic protest, brings the global Muslim ummah together in mosques and affirms the bonds of a community of faith and submission to the God of Abraham. The Friday jummah prayer service symbolically reaffirms the community of the faithful, which can be used to remind them of the notion that an attack on Muslims anywhere, or on the symbols of their faith, should be felt as an attack on Muslims everywhere. Fridays, then, have in recent years always marked a high-point in protests, be it against the invasion of Iraq or the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, Israel's bombing of Gaza, or the desecration of the Koran by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan or by an obscure preacher in Florida. And, as in those previous rounds of protest, it's a relatively safe bet that the outrage over the "Innocence of Muslims" film will eventually abate - although the death of protesters creates new grievances that can sustain the issue. PHOTOS: Protests Rage in Middle East, Sparked by Mysterious Anti-Islamic Film But White House Press Secretary Jay Carney may be overreaching when he insisted, Friday, that the protests came "in response not to United States policy, not to the Administration, not the American people; it is in response to a video, a film that we have judged to be reprehensible and disgusting - that in no way justifies any violent reaction to it - but this is no way a case of protests directed towards the United States writ large, or at U.S. policies." It's never that simple. The reason that a piece of "evidence" of American animus to Islam itself - the desecration of a Koran, say, or a video painting a grotesque caricature of the Prophet Muhammad - ignites a rage in so many Muslims that can be directed at U.S. institutions is precisely because of the way those Muslims have viewed and experienced U.S. policy. Direct insults on Islam such as those contained in the offending movie are such a powerful tool in the hands of those who would agitate against U.S. involvement in the Middle East - and against those in the Arab world who would work with Washington - is that they function as a kind of narrative "gotcha!" motive that ties together all of the Arab world's many grievances with the United States. Egregious insults like the "Innocence of Muslims" film would not be so easily translated into rage at U.S. power were it not for the simmering long-term rage at Washington over its invasions of Muslim countries, its support for Israeli governments and Arab despots, its drone strikes and more. MORE: What We Can Learn from the Attacks on U.S. Embassies Deep anger at U.S. foreign policy is the long-term preexisting condition that geopolitical Obamacare has failed to significantly alter; the outrage at an offensive film is the opportunistic virus that, when combined with the preexisting condition, creates a crisis. Instances of American Islam-bashing are used to "prove" that the policies and actions of the U.S. that most anger ordinary Arabs are not simply discrete foreign policy choices driven by self-interest and other agendas, but are instead expressions of a deeper animus towards Islam itself - a "proof" that functions like a chemical catalyst that can be used to bring that residual anger to the boil. Yes, it's always manipulated by cynical opportunists driven by narrow political agendas, but the outrage itself is real - and hardly confined to a movie. Without the preexisting anger, in fact, the film would be like a detonator without dynamite. Only the combination of the two creates the explosion. So, in that sense, President Obama's Republican critics are not wrong in suggesting that this week's upsurge in protests are, at least in part, a response to the Administration's handling of the Middle East, or even to what Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan on Friday called "mixed signals" from the White House. But where Ryan and those echoing him are wrong - egregiously, spectacularly wrong - is to suggest that the protests are a response to a retreat from "moral clarity and firmness of purpose," watchwords of the Bush era. On the contrary, the Muslim world was up in arms against the U.S. on a sustained basis for most of the Bush presidency, precisely because of its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, its unconditional backing for Israel as it pummeled Palestinians, and the obvious hypocrisy of a policy of proclaiming democracy and freedom while coddling friendly despots. If the Arab world is angry at the "mixed messages" coming from the Obama Administration, that's because the President in Cairo in 2009 had promised a break from Bush-era policies, yet failed on so many fronts to deliver it. It's not the changes Obama's made since the Bush era that drive Arab anger; it's his Administration's many continuities with Bush-era policies in the Middle East. Ryan demands that Obama show "American leadership" by marching even more closely in lockstep with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And that's going to calm the crowds gathered in front of U.S. embassies in the Arab world? MORE: The Making of Innocence of Muslims: One Actor's Story Thoughtful foreign policy wonks from hawkish heavy hitter Robert Kagan, a key Bush Administration adviser during the Iraq war, to more liberal experts in Arab politics such as the Carnegie Endowment's Nathan Brown, concur in supporting a measured response that recognizes the political and social crises underway in the Arab world, and seeks engagement with the emergent Islamist governments in order to press them in a more pragmatic direction. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt appears to have tried to signal, however clumsily, that it, too, seeks engagement and a new relationship with Western powers. But it can't ignore the well-stream of anger unleashed by the broadcasting on Salafist TV networks of clips from a crude video provocation. That's why it has called on its followers to protest the film, but to do so peacefully at their local mosques - in other words, not at the U.S. embassy. Something tells me that such roundabout efforts to calm the situation by encouraging but also limiting protest- as two-sided as they may seem to an American media audience - may offer the best hope of changing the dynamic. Events over the past week in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen are a reminder that the region, and Washington's relationship with it, has entered uncharted territory over the past two years. Neither bromides about "moral clarity" nor evasions of the enduring contradictions and ambiguities in U.S. policy offer much guidance. As the Arab world changes, it asks new questions of itself - but also of the major superpower in its midst. That conversation, which will be anything but comfortable, is only just beginning.