The part of the document's content:
......hoo! is not affiliated with the authors of this page or responsible for its content. DEMOCRATIZING THE MIDDLE EAST: ARE WE UPTO THE TASK

















DEMOCRATIZING THE MIDDLE EAST: ARE WE UPTO THE TASK?




Policy Brief on Democratization
By Mumukshu Patel

November 28, 2003



1100 New York Ave NW, Ste 1090 East TEL (202) 347-3190 FAX (202) 393-0993 Washington, D.C. 20005 INTERNET: www.napawash.org N ATIONAL A CADEMY OF P UBLIC A DMINISTRATION 1100 New York Ave NW, Ste 1090 East TEL (202) 347-3190 FAX (202) 393-0993 Washington, D.C. 20005 INTERNET: www.napawash.org N ATIONAL A CADEMY OF P UBLIC A DMINISTRATION The views expressed in this document are those of the author.
They do not necessarily reflect the views of the Academy as an
institution or any other institution or individual. DEMOCRATIZING THE MIDDLE EAST: ARE WE UPTO THE TASK?
Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle
East did nothing to make us safe -- because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export. And with the spread of weapons that can bring catastrophic harm to our country and to our friends, it would be reckless to accept the status quo. Therefore, the United States has adopted a new policy, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. President George W Bush, Forward Strategy for Freedom, at NED, November, 6 2003. 1 On November 6, 2003 in a speech at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), President George W Bush enunciated his Middle East Doctrine: democratization 2 of the region as the first priority of U.S. strategy, irrespective of past policy considerations. It was the most ambitious policy overhaul for the region, since President Eisenhowers commitment to defend the Middle East against Soviet Communism. 3 Following the Eisenhower doctrine all U.S. Middle East policy reflected strategic U.S. concerns: as long as states in the Middle East cooperated with the U.S., shunned Communism and later rejected theocratic regimes at least nominally, the United States would ignore their domestic policies, and support them via foreign aid, military technology and personnel etc. This was the status quo that characterized U.S. policy toward the Middle East. 2 The status quo continued despite the end of the Cold War. President George H W Bush in his New World Order speech on September 11, 1990 4 stated that democracies and free markets would spread across the world now, since we had reached the end of history. 5 He did not think that the U.S. needed to make a doctrinal shift in Mid-east policy to create a more peaceful region; for him it was bound to happen automatically through the course of history. That dialectic of history did not materialize, and eleven years later, the very symbols of that new world order were assaulted, killing at least three thousand people on U.S. soil. The problems of ethnic violence, civil strife and religious fundamentalism posed a powerful challenge to the United States and the international order. Global surveys and even U.S. national public opinion polls showed that the public was highly disenchanted by U.S. foreign policy. 6 There was substantial domestic and international popular resentment as one began to realize that strategic interests and naked power appeals outweighed concerns for principles in U.S. foreign affairs. It was time for policy to be in greater consonance with principles: promoting democracy, safeguarding human rights, advancing the rule of law needed to become high priorities instead of empty proclamations. Promoting democracy across the Middle East and in most regions of the globe is a policy that would serve strategic U.S. national interests also. 7 Experience shows, and most political scientists agree that democracies do not fight each other. 8 Democracies are also the best regimes for ensuring domestic stability and more equitable prosperity for their citizens. If all the states of the Middle East were democratized they would ensure regional stability, international order, as well as national and individual prosperity. These conditions would reduce the likelihood of violence and terror in the Middle East and its spillover to the U.S. and elsewhere. 9 Western and U.S. security would increase as a result of democratization. This seems to be the logic guiding the new Mid-east policy: pursue a principled foreign policy that is committed to spreading democracy, while at the same time satisfy security concerns. 3 There are several interesting omissions in this new policy for the Middle East, when it is compared with past U.S. policies for the region. The most glaring exclusion is the respect for the sovereignty of states in the region; a point stressed by the Eisenhower doctrine. 10 Even more radical is the total disregard for international sanction for democratization endeavors in the Middle East. If the U.S. were to democratize a country against its wishes and without generating international consensus on the issue, then the U.S. faces serious credibility and legitimacy problems regarding its policies. Even before we approach the questions of credibility and legitimacy, we need to address some fundamental questions: What are conditions under which successful democratization can take place? Does the U.S. have the institutional and resource capacity to undertake such a task? 4 Democratization endeavors undertaken by external powers in the post Cold War setting have shown that for the process to be successful, one needs to invest considerable amounts of resources for substantial periods of time. 11 External powers also need a coherent and clear strategy for democratization; this is a critical factor in determining the success or failure of democratization strategies. Liberal democracies are usually averse to investing large amounts of resources for sustained time periods, because their domestic constituents are unwilling to spend their tax dollars and in many instances deploy their armed forces to foreign regions for building democracies. However, as President George W Bush argues in the U.S. context, a democratic world, and more importantly a democratic Middle East are crucial for national security. Thus, we have an acute democratization dilemma: on the one hand the U.S. administration faces domestic electoral pressures to avoid democratization in foreign lands, while foreign policy principles and national security concerns make democratization a top priority. The democratization dilemma could be resolved if the administration came up with a clear democratization policy and strong institutional capacity that would be able to marshal resources effectively toward such endeavors. Domestic public opinion would then be willing to support democratization efforts, in the Middle East and elsewhere. The creation of the National Security Council, and the strengthening of the Departments of State and Defense at the end of the Second World War, coupled with the clear foreign policy objectives laid out by the Roosevelt and Truman administrations generated popular support for the reconstruction and democratization of Western Europe and Japan. 12 A critical condition for the successful pursuit of democratization in the post Cold War situation is a similar overhaul of institutional capacity and clarity of purpose defined in terms of measurable objectives. The Bush administration can only then expect domestic public support for its democratization endeavors. 5 The Bush administration also needs to secure international support for its democratization efforts in the Middle East, if the country where democratization is to take place does not sanction it. Because that is the only way, to justify and legitimize such endeavors, and in more tangible terms it is the only way the U.S. will be able to garner enough resources for the required long time-periods to undertake successful democratization. With the U.S. share of total world GDP falling from fifty percent in 1945 to around twenty-two percent in 2003, it is crucial that U.S. policy-makers realize that we live in a uni-multilateral world: 13 the U.S. is the only superpower and its support is required for any international issue to be resolved effectively, but it cannot pursue any international operation unilaterally because of resource constraints. It is not quite evident that the Bush administration has grasped this latter fact. The difficulties encountered by coalition forces in Iraq and the belated policy change with respect to transfer of sovereignty and the recognition for the need of United Nations (UN) involvement there highlight the limits of U.S. power and influence, and the administrations inability to grasp these constraints. 14 The conditions elaborated above for successful democratization greater institutional capacity, clarity of purpose, international sanction only address deductive policy approaches. 15 Experience, in the post Cold War setting in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Afghanistan has shown that the most critical condition for sustaining a democracy in any region is a bottoms-up approach to democratization: democracy is brought about, not so much by imposition from above by external actors, but is established by grassroots and civil society organizations within the region itself. President Bush mentioned Bahrain and Morocco in his NED speech as successful examples of Middle East democratization; in both cases the need to democratize came from within the societies. Other countries in the Middle East, from Egypt to Iran do have a vibrant, albeit repressed civil society. The efforts of Saad Eddin Ibrahim and Shirin Ebadi are just the most visible examples of Middle East civil society at work; there are numerous other examples. 16 If the U.S. partnered with community leaders and grass-roots level activists in the Middle East to democratize the region, then its efforts are far more likely to succeed. 6 Thus, if the U.S. is to democratize the Middle East, then we need to realize three critical factors: the need to create an institutional capacity to undertake such a task, the need for broader international support for such endeavors, and most importantly the need to partner with legitimate civil society groups and community leaders within the Middle East to facilitate the creation of democracies there. These tasks are not easy, but neither are they impossible to achieve. A comprehensive U.S. policy overhaul is just one step toward achieving the goal of a democratic Middle East. This needs to be followed up by implementation to create institutional capacity as well as be accompanied by a realization among policy-makers at Foggy Bottom and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue 17 that a sophisticated and nuanced understanding of Middle Eastern and international political dynamics is essential for democratization policies to be successful. The notion of a Communist monolith during the Cold War prevented us from exploiting the Sino-Soviet split, recognizing the various national versions of Communism, all of which resulted in expensive and often, incorrect policy decisions. 18 Viewing the Middle East as a region of stagnation, incapable of democratizing from within, without understanding its nuances, brings us close to repeating past mistakes. 7 The rhetoric of the Bush administration in its use of theological terms like good and evil make the struggle against Communism and the war on terror sound very similar, and one wonders if we will indeed repeat past errors. However, the similarity seems to end there. The war on terror and the decision to democratize the Middle East come after the U.S. homeland experienced direct attacks. Unlike the Cold War, we do not know who the enemy is. Our institutional capacity is not geared toward handling non-state actors, nor are we yet capable to execute peace-building strategies like democratization securing the peace after military victories. Moreover, we no longer have the support of our traditional allies on foreign policy objectives, as the threats we face or even our threat perceptions, continue to differ. 19 We are 8 constrained on several fronts by resource and institutional limits, yet we do not comprehend these. More importantly, we do not seem to know the exact capacities of our enemies. And this may lead us to undertake reckless policies that might have disastrous consequences. We avoided a reckless course during the Cold War because we knew the Soviet capacity to destroy our society, and hence we followed a prudent policy of containment. 20 If democracy is to flower in the Middle East, then the Administration needs to follow a prudent democratization policy that increases our institutional capacity to deal with such endeavors, that garners international support for our policies, and that secures support from civil society groups and community leaders in the Middle East. If we follow such a policy, we will be up-to the task of democratizing the Middle East. Otherwise, the U.S. may succeed in creating nominal democratic institutions that may at best continue the status quo of domestic repression and elite support for the U.S. in the Middle East, and at worst metastasize parochial, fundamentalist politics throughout the region creating a backlash against the U.S. that further endangers our security and disrupts the international order. In a republican democracy, 21 citizens trust the volition of their representatives to pursue a path that secures general welfare and security; let us hope that President Bush has the courage to execute his foreign policy goals in the right manner; if he does not, we will have undermined our own faith in democracy while trying to democratize foreign regions. 9 ENDNOTES 1 President George W Bush, Speech at the National Endowment for Democracy, Nov 6 2003. Available at: http://www.ned.org/events/anniversary/oct1603-Bush.html accessed on 11/16/2003. 2 Democratization is a process which leads to a more open, more participatory, less authoritarian society. Democracy is a system of government which embodies, in a variety of institutions and mechanisms, the ideal of
political power based on the will of the people. Boutros Boutros Ghali, An Agenda for Democratization, United
Nations Papers of the Secretary General (Dec, 1996). Available at: http://www.library.yale.edu/un/un3d3.htm#I Accessed on 11/10/2003. Democratization means the creation of democratic state institutions that facilitate the
practice of democratic politics within a states territory, Dr. Ghalis definition is now widely accepted. 3 President Dwight D Eisenhower, The Eisenhower Doctrine, Jan 21, 1957. Available at: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1957eisenhowerdoctrine.html accessed on 11/17/2003. 4 President George H W Bush, Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the Persian Gulf Crisis and the Federal Budget Deficit, Sep 11, 1990. Available at: http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/ accessed on 1/17/2003. This was the speech where President George H W Bush enunciated his New World Order doctrine that proclaimed the
inevitable rise of democracies and free market economies globally, as communism had failed. It states: a new
world order -- can [now] emerge: a new era -- freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and
more secure in the quest for peace. An era in which the nations of the world, East and West, North and South, can
prosper and live in harmony. A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while a thousand
wars raged across the span of human endeavor. Today that new world is struggling to be born, a world quite
different from the one we've known. A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in
which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the
rights of the weak. 5 Francis Fukuyama, The End of History, The National Interest Summer 1989. 6 Richard Morin and Dan Balz, Public Support Wanes for Bush Foreign Policy, Polls Show The Washington Post, September 13, 2003. Also see Pew Charitable Trusts, Views of a Changing World 2003: War With Iraq Further
Divides Global Publics (June 2003) for international public opinion. The report is available at: http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=185 Accessed 11/18/2003 7 Refer the speech listed in endnote 1, as well as the National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002. An electronic version is available at: www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html . Also refer, US Commission on National Security for the 21 st Century at www.nssg.gov Accessed 11/19/2003. 8 Starr, Harvey, 1997. 'Democracy and Integration: Why Democracies Don't Fight Each Other', Journal of Peace Research 34(2): 153-162 9 See notes six and one listed above. 10 President Dwight D Eisenhower, The Eisenhower Doctrine, Jan 21, 1957. Available at: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1957eisenhowerdoctrine.html accessed on 11/17/2003 11 James Dobbins et al. America's Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq (RAND: 2003). Available at: http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1753/index.html Accessed 10/07/2003. 12 Public Opinion Polls conducted by Gallup Polls show consistent U.S. domestic support for nation- building/democratization/reconstruction efforts in Europe and Japan after the Second World War as opposed to
aversion to such efforts in the post Cold War setting in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo. Afghanistan and Iraq
show mixed signals. Refer: www.gallup.com and also Mumukshu Patel, The Democratization Dilemma, undergraduate honors thesis (in progress). 13 Samuel Huntington, The Lonely Superpower Foreign Affairs (Mar/Apr 1999). 14 G Jefferson Price, A Turning Point Christian Science Monitor, Nov 21 2003. Available at: http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1121/p11s02-coop.html Accessed on 11/22/2003. Also refer to articles on Ambassador Paul Bremers visit to Washington DC in November 2003 on Goolge.com/news or the Lexis database.
See Brian Knowlton, Bremer Reaffirms US Commitment to Iraqs Security New York Times, Nov 16, 2003 and
Kirk Semple, Germany, France and Russia Ask U.N. to Call International Meeting on Iraq's Future New York
Times, Nov 22, 2003. Available at www.nytimes.com 15 Deductive approaches refer to the attempts by external actors in democratization endeavors. These efforts have not been quite effective. As Thomas Carothers notes, most international democratization efforts since 1989, can be
summed up as: they came to teach [democracy], they stayed to learn and they are learning still in From Teachers 10 to Learners Central Europe Review (Mar 2000). Also available at: http://www.ce- review.org/00/11/carothers11.html 16 Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian human rights activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, while Saad Eddin Ibrahim is a prominent democracy activist in Egypt. 17 Foggy Bottom refers to the State Department and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue refers to the White House and the National Security Council. 18 The Eisenhower doctrine refers to International Communism as a monolith, see note 3 for references. Lack of recognition of Vietnamese communism as a different national version from Sino-Soviet communism, according to
many historians, was the costliest mistake that the U.S. made in the late sixties and early seventies, resulting in the
Vietnam quagmire. 19 Pew Charitable Trusts Survey, Americans and Europeans Differ Widely on Foreign Policy Issues, August 2002. Available at: http://www.pewtrusts.com/ideas/ideas_item.cfm?content_item_id=1025&content_type_id=18 Accessed 11/19/2003. 20 For more details on the Containment Doctrine refer: Paul Nitze, NSC 68, George Kennan, X Article, Foreign Affairs, and President Truman, The Truman Doctrine. 21 I use the term in the Kantian sense. Refer: Immanual Kant, Perpetual Peace. Available at: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/kant/kant1.htm Accessed on 11/19/2003.