(FORTUNE Magazine) – U.S. forces may be dethroning the Taliban, but it's clear that Middle Eastern rage still simmers. All over the region, parents are naming infants Osama and conspiracy theories circulate that the CIA (or maybe the Mossad) was behind the Sept. 11 attacks. Why is so much of the Muslim world so edgy, so angry, so dangerously frustrated?

Poverty is not the answer. The Sept. 11 hijackers were not poor, and many poor places, like Bangladesh or Mongolia, are not terrorist-ridden. There must be something more--and the U.N.'s Human Development Report 2001 suggests what that might be. The report includes something called the human development index, a figure derived from dozens of different factors--literacy, life expectancy, water quality, and so on. As you'd expect, Western Europe, Canada, and the U.S. are at the top of the list; the bottom is populated by various sub-Saharan hellholes. Things get more interesting when the U.N. examines how various countries are performing relative to their wealth. Countries like Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica, and Vietnam all are significantly better off than their incomes would indicate. But the opposite is true for much of the Muslim world, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Iran. (Jordan and Israel run slightly ahead of the game, as does Indonesia, the country with the world's largest Muslim population; the U.S. runs slightly behind.)

Consider, for example, Sri Lanka and Egypt. The two countries have almost exactly the same GDP per head ($3,400), but Sri Lanka--despite a long and bloody civil war--is considerably more literate and longer-lived. Or compare Vietnam and Pakistan, which each have a GDP of a little less than $2,000. More than 90% of Vietnamese adults are literate, compared with 45% of Pakistanis; a Vietnamese woman can expect to live to 70, a Pakistani to die before she reaches 60. Costa Ricans make 25% less money than Saudis but live five years longer.

In short, much of the Muslim world is failing to deliver the goods. And this goes deep. Of 161 countries in the index of economic freedom, which looks at things like protectionism and barriers to starting a business, Saudi Arabia came in 71st, Pakistan 100th, and Egypt 110th. (Jordan was 61st and Israel 49th). In terms of political freedom, on a scale of one to ten, with ten being complete tyranny, Freedom House rated Saudi Arabia at 7.7, Pakistan at 7.5, Egypt at 6.5, Jordan at 4.4, and Israel at 1.2. The same pattern holds true for indexes that measure government corruption and press freedom.

It's easy, indeed habitual, for Western leftists and Muslim newspapers to hold up poverty, McDonald's, and Israel as the "root causes" of all that has gone wrong in the Muslim world for the past 50 years. Please. You don't have to be rich or love Israel to teach people to read, to run a reasonably honest public sector, or to allow some discussion of the government's actions: Just look at Jordan. But when such elemental decencies are lacking, frustration builds. And without the accountability provided by elections and a free press, sometimes it boils over.

To deal with Muslim anger, then, responsible governments should give up blaming Tel Aviv or Western imperialism and try freedom, clean government, economic openness, and education--and yes, that means for girls too. Do that for 50 years, and the real "root causes" will disappear.