Democracy for the Arabs

President Bush's speech on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is potentially the most radical address on the Middle East ever delivered by an American leader. The novelty of his text did not lie in the specifics of a settlement in the Holy Land. Nor, for that matter, did its main interest lie in the usual Washington parlour game of who's up and who's down. The real novelty lay, rather, in its approach to the Arab world. For the first time, the fostering of democracy and free institutions are to be the lodestars of American policy towards a part of the region. Hitherto, liberty has been low down the scale of priorities of successive American presidents. The main thing has been to prop up local rulers who kept the oil flowing and the American bases and other interests in place.

Such attitudes reflect the widespread belief in the foreign ministries and intelligence services of America and Europe that Western-style democracy is not quite suitable for the Arab world. Indeed, in some circles, not least in this country, there is also a certain grudging respect for the nasty strongman who can hold things together. Thus, the essential Western approach is the old Hilaire Belloc line - "Always keep a-hold of Nurse/ For fear of finding something worse". It applies as much to Yasser Arafat as to the House of Saud.

Many senior figures in Washington began to question this orthodoxy after September 11, when it was discovered that the Saudis and other "moderate" Muslim states were deflecting internal tensions on to the outside world. It soon became apparent that Mr Arafat, too, was exporting his internal tensions on to Israel, through the use of suicide bombings. Thus, the traditional approach was not even yielding stability, let alone advancing American values. The key figure in this re-appraisal of Mr Arafat is Dick Cheney, the American Vice-President. As a devotee of the writings of Professor Bernard Lewis, Mr Cheney is profoundly conscious of the relative success of the Turkish model of democracy - evidence that a reformation is possible in so allegedly inhospitable an environment.

The end result was the President's speech. Far from laying the lion's share of the blame for the current violence at the door of Israeli counter-insurgency techniques or settlements policy, the President placed the bulk of the blame on the repressive nature of Mr Arafat's regime. Pace Cherie Blair and Jack Straw, George W. Bush believes that the "hopelessness" of the Palestinians derives largely from their own corrupt leadership. Indeed, much of the President's scepticism about Mr Arafat comes from American intelligence data about his role in fostering terrorism. What positive intelligence does Tony Blair have about Mr Arafat that leads him to dissent from the President's conclusions?

Mr Bush's speech also suggests that American policy towards Iraq will be driven by far more than merely a desire to overthrow Saddam Hussein with another Ba'athist general. The problem is no longer only the individual tyrant, but rather the institution of tyranny itself. It implies, instead, a more comprehensive approach to political development that can only benefit the main opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress. In the longer run, the citizens of Egypt and Saudi Arabia may also wonder why their own rulers do not live up to the standards of accountability and transparency demanded of the Palestinian Authority. The key question now is whether the State Department and CIA - which will have responsibility for implementing the President's plan - will be able to divest his vision of its cutting edge and return to business as usual.

Bringing democracy to a third world culture is a real challenge and thus far the project has shown no success. Bringing democracy to a Moslem culture is a challenge of a much higher order. A Moslem society must press for Islamic rule, for sharia. To democratize them you have to pry them from their religion, teach them real history, educate their children in non-Moslem schools, etc. It is a multigenerational project and assumes control of the target society by Westerners.It requires real Injah style colonialism. A democracy does not have the stamina for such a project.

Many senior figures in Washington began to question this orthodoxy after September 11, when it was discovered that the Saudis and other "moderate" Muslim states were deflecting internal tensions on to the outside world. It soon became apparent that Mr Arafat, too, was exporting his internal tensions on to Israel, through the use of suicide bombings.

This deflection of internal tensions in Saudia and other moderate muslim states was not discovered by Washington after 9/11. While not as clearly defined as it is now this tactic was widely known for years.

As notion that Arafat used homicde bombers to deflect internal tensions is downright laughable if it weren't so vile.

Democracy in Arab countries. Give it a few centuries and call me in the morning.

IMO, The guy that wrote this is clueless.

Democracy + Arabs = ???

I cant seem to get it to add up and make sense at all, or it is only me :)

I can see it working for Israel since they've been democratic for many years but I cant get my mind to even imagine it for any Arab state.

Far from laying the lion's share of the blame for the current violence at the door of Israeli counter-insurgency techniques or settlements policy, the President placed the bulk of the blame on the repressive nature of Mr Arafat's regime. Pace Cherie Blair and Jack Straw, George W. Bush believes that the "hopelessness" of the Palestinians derives largely from their own corrupt leadership

This is the only sensible statement in the whole article.

Oh, you're quite right about the Pallies themselves. They're not interested in deflecting internal tensions. They're interested in driving most Jews into the Sea, and the rest into ovens.

However, you miss the author's larger point, one that the Telegraph's editorial staff should have driven home. The whole Arab angst against Israel is whipped up by the local regimes to deflect the emotions and intellects of the population away from the fascists and kleptocrats who rule them and toward the Other: the Zionist Jew.

If we have made a long term strategic shift, it is because the President and his staff have come to the conclusion that terrorism will not be defeated if the kleptocratic regimes that pay it protection are not swept away.

I am coming to believe that this may be the first palimpset of that kind of extremely radical, extremely revolutionary, foreign policy.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

However, you miss the author's larger point, one that the Telegraph's editorial staff should have driven home. The whole Arab angst against Israel is whipped up by the local regimes to deflect the emotions and intellects of the population away from the fascists and kleptocrats who rule them and toward the Other: the Zionist Jew.

I got his point. The part I was arguing is that this was not discovered by Washington after 9/11. They may have pretended it was not important and down played its role in terrorism, but they knew.

If true, short of propping up governments as was done in the past though coups, it will require the muslim people in the world to make drastic changes in their worldview. In short, they will need to be secularized to a far larger degree. I have serious reservations I will see any real change in my life time. I guess there's alway hope.

A lot of it has more to do with ethnicity than it has with Islam. The Muslims of Turkey are thoroughly secularized after a century of Kemalism. The Muslims of Indonesia remain fairly secular as well. Only in the "Arab" Islamic world does one find this firestorm of grievance.

An interesting set of affairs.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

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