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Street-wise Washington backs
off
By Ashraf Fahim
"We hope, at some point in time, everybody
is free."
- US President George W Bush
, responding to a question about Iran during
his December 20 press conference.
As the above quote indicates,
the Bush administration's rhetorical zeal for
democracy-making in the Middle East appears to be
waning. While "freedom" is still spoken of as the
desired end state, it isn't being suggested that
its reign is imminent with the same fervor that
preceded the Iraq war. As a recent op-ed in the
Christian Science Monitor put it, after Iraq, "A
crestfallen America 
seems to
have abandoned its idealistic aspirations to the
point that it now favors working with the same
unsavory regimes that promise the chimera of
stability."
To a degree, the return to realism
is a reaction to the sheer trauma of the ongoing
bloodbath in Iraq. But it may also reflect heightened
uncertainties about what will emerge in Iraq
and the wider Middle East as a result of democracy's
promotion or imposition. In Iraq, the United
States is now caught between an insurgency and a
theocracy, and both are broadly anti-US, because
most Iraqis oppose US policies. The potency of
Iraqi nationalism, which fuels the insurgency, has
been a stultifying reminder to US policymakers
that the popular will won't necessarily comport to
US strategic interests, especially in the narrow
and one-sided way they are currently defined.
Regional US allies such as Jordan, Egypt and
Saudi Arabia will certainly profit from the return
to the "kid gloves" approach that was on display
at the Forum for the Future the Bush
administration held in Morocco in mid-December,
and which focused on technical and economic
assistance rather than dramatic political change.
But it is the policy debate about non-US allies
Syria and Iran that may be most impacted, given
that the assumption held by some that "ending"
those regimes will empower Western-friendly
publics now appears demonstrably unsound.
The US neo-conservatives
had built their campaign for instantaneous
democratization on two erroneous assumptions:
that the nationalist, anti-US policies of such states as
Ba'athist Iraq, Syria and Iran defied the popular will; and
that regional violence is the product of tyranny
and failed societies more than unpopular US
policies. Bush has swallowed the second assumption
whole. "The root causes of terror and hatred ...
is frustration caused by tyranny," he said last
Friday.
Those two assumptions have unraveled in
Iraq, where the US is, for once, up close and
personal with the mythical "Arab street" and
discovering both that it is just as nationalistic
as the former Iraqi regime, and that wariness of
US intentions is destabilizing Iraq more than the
dysfunctional nature of Iraqi society - a
microcosm of the regional dynamic.
The results of a poll by
Zogby International conducted in November in five Arab countries
on the subject of reform confirmed that people in
the region are far more interested in a change
in US policies, such as unequivocal support for Israel,
than US assistance in democratizing. In fact,
the Arab-Israeli conflict ranked second in issues
of importance, while such issues as expanding democracy
ranked near the bottom. In no country polled did a
majority want US help democratizing (in Saudi
Arabia, only 1% did).
Two recent
events indicate that, despite its heady rhetoric,
the Bush administration remains wary of the
fickleness of the Near Eastern electorate, and more
than ready to reinstate America's long-standing
status quo policy. First there was last month's snafu
surrounding the third annual United Nations
Development Program (UNDP) Arab development
report. Past reports, which are compiled by noted
Arab scholars, were used by the Bush
administration to great effect to lament the
"democracy deficit" in the Arab world and thereby
justify US intervention. This time around, the
report apparently cited the deep unpopularity of
US policies in Iraq and Palestine as a factor in
stifling reform, and the administration threatened
to cut UNDP funding if it went ahead with
publication.
Commenting on the affair,
Rami Khouri of Lebanon's Daily Star captured the
administration's quandary. "It has always been
only a matter of time until the United States'
professed desire to promote reform and democracy
throughout the Arab world rubbed against the
reality that free Arabs would probably express
strong criticisms of Israel and of America's
Middle East policy," he wrote in December. That
reality was on display outside of the Forum for
the Future, where 20,000 Moroccans demonstrated
against US foreign policy.
Then there were
the steps taken to silence the Movement for
Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA), a London-based
Saudi dissident group. The US and United Kingdom
governments have accused the group of having ties
to al-Qaeda and froze their financial assets in
late December. It is unclear whether the charges
are accurate, but they are vehemently denied by
MIRA's leader, Sa'ad al-Fagih, who claims that his
group is devoted to non-violent methods. What is
clear is that MIRA, which is highly critical of
the US-Saudi alliance, is becoming increasingly
bothersome to the pro-US House of Saud and
effective at mobilizing opposition within the
kingdom.
Debating Syria and
Iran
Evolving US policy toward Syria
and Iran had a decidedly sharper edge to it prior
to the Iraq imbroglio. Given the
ideological hostility of many in the Bush
administration toward those two states, many
believed confrontation was inevitable. But as
the administration enters its second term, there is
a vigorous internal debate that suggests
the difficulty in "flipping" Iraq (neo-con-speak for
instantaneous transformation from foe to friend),
has frustrated those who favor a quick reckoning.
Options against both states still range
from engagement to the tightening of existing
sanctions to upping support for proxy opposition
groups to military action. The White House seems
to have lost its appetite for an outright
confrontation with Syria, and January 7 news
reports that one of Syria's staunchest
adversaries, hardline Under Secretary of State
John Bolton, will apparently be replaced rather
than promoted, contrary to earlier reports, can
only be welcomed by Damascus.
There
remains significant support in influential
right-wing policy circles for a showdown, however.
For example, William Kristol, editor of the
neo-con Weekly Standard, argued in the December 20
issue for US military strikes to punish Syria for
allegedly supporting Iraq's insurgency. "Syria is
a weak country and a weak regime. We now need to
take action to punish and deter [Syrian President
Bashar] Assad's regime," he wrote, suggesting that the
US should bomb military and installations and
could "support the Syrian opposition".
Such a course of action would be unlikely
to have the desired effect, to put it mildly.
Syria's minority-Allawite government has maintained what
legitimacy it has with the Sunni majority through
conspicuous nationalism, in particular a
steadfast position on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
In addition to their anger at US policy on
Israel-Palestine, the Sunnis now see their kin in
Iraq disfranchised and besieged by US forces.
The idea that the Syrian opposition could gain
legitimacy with the Sunni majority through
aggressive US intervention is therefore ludicrous.
If Kristol hasn't absorbed the lessons of
Iraq, there are indications that Bush has. On
Syria, he has been cautious of late. "We ought to
be working with the Syrian government to prevent
them from either sending money and/or support [to
Iraq's insurgents] of any kind," he said on
December 20. "We have tools at our disposal, a
variety of tools, ranging from diplomatic tools to
economic pressure. Nothing is off the table, " the
president said. While Bush did leave all options
open, that statement was more conciliatory than
past ultimatums.
Bush's caution likely
reflects his hopes that Syria will play nice
during the January 30 Iraqi election. But it may
also reflect a realization that one Pandora's box
- Iraq - is enough. Attempting to "flip" Syria or
Iran would put the US face to face with those
publics who, though eager for change, are as
nationalistic and mistrustful of US intentions as
Iraqis.
The only country the Bush
administration considers a greater threat to its
strategic goals in the Middle East than Syria is
Iran. And indeed, there is a broad political
consensus in the US that Iran must be prevented
from obtaining nuclear weapons at all costs. But
with Iran as with Syria, the administration has a
problem in search of policy. Likewise the options
range from striking Iran's nuclear facilities, to
pushing for UN sanctions, to diplomatic
engagement.
Worryingly, however, the
dominant narrative in the US is that Iran is at
some sort of democratic tipping point, that the
70% of Iranians under the age of 30 are on the
verge of sending the clerics packing so they can
be free to start rap bands and have chador-burning
parties. "As luck would have it, we have a real
chance to remove the terror regime ... by
supporting the Iranian democratic opposition,"
Michael Ledeen, bearer of the ostentatious title
of "Freedom Scholar" at the American Enterprise
Institute (AEI), wrote on November 29.
Michael Rubin, also of AEI, belabors the
same illusions as Ledeen. "An anti-Western
ideology remains at the core of the Islamic
Republic, even as the majority of Iranian citizens
long to join the West," he wrote on December 10.
For Rubin, military strikes are the answer, and
they will spark a counterrevolution. This is a
remarkably ahistorical analysis, given that the
Islamic revolution of 1979 was, in part, propelled
by anger over US support for the Shah's oppressive
regime, a legacy that continues to nurture a
profound sense of historical grievance in Iran.
The nuclear issue embodies America's Iran
dilemma. The West's opposition to Iran obtaining
nuclear weapons tends to stir Iranians' sense of
national pride while striking them as
transparently hypocritical, since many Western
nations already possess nuclear weapons, as do
neighborhood US allies Israel and Pakistan. In
seeking to corner Iran on the nuclear issue, the
US increases support for the Iranian government,
which has gained currency through its defiance on
precisely that issue. During a recent meeting, an
Iranian diplomat reportedly boasted to European
Union officials that US military strikes would
make building nuclear weapons an uncontested
"national cause" among Iranians.
On Iran,
Bush has likewise been more diplomatic than the
peanut gallery. "Diplomacy must be the first
choice, and always the first choice of an
administration trying to solve an issue of, in
this case, nuclear armament," he said on December
20, adding that the US has "sanctioned ourselves
out of influence with Iran". Once again, Bush may
simply be bargaining for Iranian cooperation in
Iraq, but there must also be a blossoming
awareness, if even a subconscious one, that
"flipping" Iran into a US ally is fantasy.
'Phraselator'
diplomacy
According to a December article
in the New York Times, US soldiers in Iraq are now
being issued a handheld electronic device called
the "Phraselator", which translates commands in
English, such as "not a step farther", into
perfectly accented, pre-recorded Iraqi Arabic. The
only problem is that it doesn't work the other way
around, so Iraqis can't answer back.
It's
an apt metaphor for the current confusion on if,
or how, to democratize the Middle East,
particularly Syria and Iran. The region's people
are speaking back clearly - but it isn't clear
that they're being heard. Their protestations may
have shaken some in the administration from their
ideological torpor enough for them to see the
irrationality of seeking acquiescence from those
the US seeks to impose its will upon, but not
enough for them to accept that what is required is
not a return to the status quo, but the
abandonment of unpopular US policies.
It can only be hoped that this conclusion will
be reached in time to stop the assembly lines
at VoxTec, the Pentagon-financed company that
makes the Phraselator, from producing its Farsi
or Syrian-dialect versions. Because, if they could
talk back, Syrians and Iranians would most likely
say: "Not a step farther."
Ashraf
Fahim is a freelance writer on Middle Eastern
affairs based in New York and London.
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rights reserved. Please contact us for information
on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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