A Missed Opportunity: The Bush Administration’s Failure to Push for Reform in the Middle East
Democracy promotion, once the centerpiece of the Bush administration’s foreign policy, has now almost completely been forgotten. It’s been interesting to watch how this has happened. Just two years ago, in the summer of 2005, Condoleezza Rice made a major speech at the American University of Cairo calling for economic and political reform throughout the Arab world. At the time, there was a sense that all this talk of reform by the Bush administration was actually having an effect. Saudi Arabia responded by calling for local elections, Jordan seemed to be making a few steps in the right direction, Egypt held both parliamentary and presidential elections, and human rights activists in Syria became bolder in calling for reform. While none of these changes were revolutionary, they were a step in the right direction and they began to pave the way for greater political and economic freedom in the region.
In the last year, however, the Bush administration has backed off from democracy promotion. As a result, Arab governments have worked to squash domestic calls for reform and undermine the progress that had been made. Syria, for instance, recently put a slough of opposition candidates in prison and Egypt began a more thorough crackdown against the Muslim Brotherhood and some leftist groups. The Economist describes the effects of this shift in policy:
Once touted as a “forward strategy for freedomâ€, American policy consisted of badgering repressive governments into opening political space, in the hope that democracy was the surest foil to extremism of the al-Qaeda kind. Such pressure appeared to succeed, a few years ago, in shaming some autocracies into, for example, holding elections of a kind.More recently, however, the political tide appears to have flowed back against reform. Some governments have concluded that America’s bark is worse than its bite, while in other countries a lot of people may now reckon that, considering the outcome of American-imposed democracy in Iraq, a little oppression may be a worthwhile price for social peace.
Syria, for example, recently sentenced the country’s best-known human-rights advocate to five years in prison for “spreading false informationâ€. Its budding reform movement was floundering anyway, with campaigners fearing being dubbed American stooges. Many Syrians, sensitive to their own religious and ethnic diversity and conscious of sectarian mayhem next-door in Iraq, have reacted passively to their government’s latest crackdown. Egypt’s government appears almost to relish keeping Ayman Nour, runner-up to Hosni Mubarak in Egypt’s last presidential election (in 2005), in prison under trumped-up charges—just to show it can fend off American scolding. Reforms in arch-autocratic Saudi Arabia have stalled completely, with no audible protest from Washington.
This increasing lack of emphasis on democratic and economic reform is an incredible mistake. Many of these Arab governments have shown themselves to be very susceptible to American pressure and there has been a significant window to bring about some serious, and very positive, changes in the region.
Imagine for a moment what would have happened if instead of invading Iraq, the Bush administration had used its political capital to push for reforms throughout the Middle East. The vast majority of Arabs are extremely supportive of such changes and would have responded favorably to such efforts. Instead of anger and further radicalization (as the Iraq War has caused), we would have seen increasingly pro-American sentiments take root in the region. This would have been a much more effective step towards undermining groups like al-Qaeda and winning the war against Islamic terrorism.
(Cross-posted at Foreign Policy Watch)
16 Responses to “A Missed Opportunity: The Bush Administration’s Failure to Push for Reform in the Middle East”
Dumb assessment since Iraq had already been invaded when Rice made her speech. Or did I miss something?
However, as we have clearly seen, the neocon political policy of “pushing” or “bullying” other nations to adopt American political ideologies for their own, has failed. These republicans are so embarrassing.
Well, the overall point, that by being so heavy-handed the Bush administration defeated its own purpose, is a valid one. Good analysis, Jeb.
After 9/11 and before it they were awar, as probably Clinton was, that the break-up of the Soviet Union had allowed terrorist groups to try to buy nuclear components on the black market, and that our decades-long policies of supporting repression in the ME had caught up with us. So we could try to attack terrorism directly with force- and root it out with intelligence networks and interrogation in secret prisons- which is what they decided or they could encourage adoption of democratic reforms to ease the anger that’s behind it. I think the policy was initially supposed to be a combination of both, but our credibility in the second area has been severely damaged by our actions in the first.
Interesting read, thanks!
White Agent said: “…as we have clearly seen, the neocon political policy of “pushing†or “bullying†other nations to adopt American political ideologies for their own, has failed.”
I must agree with White Agent in this regard.
The Islamic world in particular seems to have very strong cultural antibodies against the virus of American-style democracy.
Ironically, as was the case in Algeria in the 1990s when there were initial moves towards democracy, the parties most predicted to win are often anti-democratic Islamic parties whose first laws upon assuming power would be to stamp out democracy.
White Agent does not, however, note that this idealistic streak in US foreign policy was founded by a Democrat: Woodrow Wilson. It has also long been a tenet of Democratic liberalism (c.f. Kennedy’s Inaugural address).
As Marlowe says, the most evident result of the would-be drive for democracy in Islamic countries has been a dramatic increase in the amount and boldness of Islamic terrorism. I hold no hope for democracy in countries like Saudi Arabia short of civil wars that cleanse the countries of radicals. Not a pleasant prospect.
I thought that Wilson’s interest in democracy was to avoid a repeat of the mass slaughter in WWI. He pushed Congress to adopt his pet project the League of Nations which was supposed to promote democracy and keep tensions from building up again as they did before 1914. But of course the League of Nations wasn’t approved by Congress, who was more isolationist than ever by 1918.
In any case it only works in certain places. The Kurds are a good candidate for democracy and capitalism; they really don’t fit with the rest of Iraq. It worked in Eastern Europe because they had some moderate reforms first and had chafed under Soviet rule since the end of WWII
Marlowe- You inexcusably overlooked Theodore “Teddy†Roosevelt….before Woodrow Wilson, FORCED the sovereign nation of Columbia to cede the areas around the Panama canal to “supposed revolutionariesâ€. Utter bunk actually, but BULLYING was coined by Roosevelt politicos.
Woodrow Wilson did no such thing and nor did John F Kennedy either. Conservative republicans are soley responsible for initiating “forced” American foreign policy upon sovereign nations. A major blight in the history of the United States and a complete disregard for the intent of our founding fathers.
Good Grief the propaganda just roars on.
WA- I think Wilson and JFK were interested in spreading democracy peacefully. Wilson with the League of Nations and JFK with the Peace Corps. Its not the same as invading a country and occupying it to force democracy on them.
blackshards -[the most evident result of the would-be drive for democracy in Islamic countries has been]–good grief you are sounding like me now. Stop reading my posts, you are ruining your grammar.
Jeb: do you have references on the relationship between democracy and terrorism? I know about the “Democratic Peace Theory”, but that covers nation states.
In particular, there seem to be different kinds of terrorists – those attempting to set up a new state like ETA and the Tamil Tigers, people like Timothy McVeigh who are probably not inspired by any political situation, people from democracies who adopt the causes of people in un-Democratic places, religious terrorists, etc.
I.e. Just because a country is a liberal democracy doesn’t seem to preclude it from having terrorists originate there.
Well, that’s true enough. We have had the home-grown kind right here- militia members, KKK, skinheads, abortion clinic bombers, black panthers, SDS etc.
I think this article speaks more about the ME than terrorism in general or democracy in general.
I imagine that the election of Hamas gave the admistration pause. Besides, many world leaders (indluding Putin) have indicated they don’t apprecieate the US preaching at them.
Now that we’ve made the mess in Iraq, they don’t feel we are the country to point the way to a batter solution.
In this kind of atmosphere, it’s wise for the US to stop preaching for awhile. It needs to rebuild its reputation before it can be credible voice.
kritter-
I would characterize Wilson as trying to prevent war by creating a platform for international communal discussion. WWI was forced upon Wilson by business interests through their bought and paid for republican politicians. Maybe that’s why we had a little economic boom after that war.
Kennedy was trying to promote peace by helping undo the horrid humanitarian results caused by the actions of the United States and the Soviet Union to little powerless third world nations, as they waged their “cold war†all over the world. Another reason so many rightfully hate us I’m sure.
We cannot continue to ask the stupid question: “Why do they hate us†while completely overlooking our not-so-distant past.
Like I said in the “WaPo on Obama” post, there is little actual evidence that Democracy promotion has ever been a cornerstone of American policy. I would go as far as to say that our leaders have been opposed to democracy at and abroad for at least the last century.
The U.S. government has supported dictators in almost every country in S. America, including Venezeula, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Argentina and Cuba. We’ve undermined popular leaders and revolutions in Vietnam, Iran and Iraq to name a few.
As for the current administration, they badgered european nations that wouldn’t go along with our plans to invade Iraq, even though throughout those countries (Germany, Russia, France) and most of the world public opinion was 90% against the invasion. The Bush administration instead heaped praise on Turkey for allowing us to use their country as a base, despite their populations overwhelming disapproval.
Democratizing Iraq only became an excuse for the occupation after we didn’t find any WMDs. Bush and Blair focused exclusively on WMDs and terrorism in the lead up to the war. Democracy was not mentioned to the American people as a selling point.
Even after Bush said we were bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq as our primary mission, he still opposed elections. He wanted to install Bremer or Chalabi as the leader and be done with it. Sistani and his supporters forced Bush to hold elections after mass demonstrations. Then of course Bush changed course again and said it was his idea to hold elections all along.
In the lead-up to those elections, the U.S. government spent millions of dollars to try to get their favored candidates (like Chalabi) in office.
Doesn’t seem like a lot of democracy promotion to me. Don’t let the propaganda fool you.
Robert Bell- Timithy McVeigh was a militant militia neocon. As reactionary as reactionary gets. McVeigh was born and breed by conservative talk radio. The blood of the people that died in the Murrah building are on the hands of the likes of Limbaugh, G.Gordon Liddy, etc..
Chris is right- we are the last ones who should be self-righteous about whether other countries are democracies or not. Left to their own devices, most countries eventually pick the system that works for them. Nationalism is a powerful force that usually helps them do it.
But one reason for the new generation of populist leaders in Latin and South America is that most of the US supported puppets from the 70′s and 80′s are gone.
WA – McVie wasn’t a neocon and the neocons didn’t kill the Pope Gandi or Christ. Neocons are a sad bunch, but they are not the reason or source for all world evil.