Posted on 03/01/2005 6:54:13 AM PST by dead
George Bush's dream of a free and prosperous Arab world might yet come true, writes Jackson Diehl.
As thousands of Arabs demonstrated for freedom and democracy in Beirut and Cairo last week, and the desperate dictators of Syria and Egypt squirmed under domestic and international pressure, it was hard not to wonder whether the regional transformation that the Bush Administration hoped would be touched off by its invasion of Iraq is, however tentatively, beginning to happen.
Those who have declared the war an irretrievable catastrophe have been gloating for at least a year over the supposed puncturing of what they portray as George Bush's fanciful illusion that democracy would take root in Iraq and spread through the region. They may yet be proved right.
But how, then, to explain the tens of thousands who marched through Beirut on Monday carrying red and white roses and scarves - the colours of what they call the "independence intifada" - and calling for "freedom, independence and sovereignty" from neighbouring Syria? Or the hundreds of Egyptian protesters who gathered that same day at Cairo University in defiance of thousands of police officers, to chant the slogan of "kifaya", or "enough", at 76-year-old President Hosni Mubarak?
The best evidence that something is happening comes from the autocrats themselves. Mubarak, under mounting pressure from the Egyptian political elite, has abandoned his plan to extend his term in office through an uncontested referendum later this year. Instead he announced the constitution would be changed to allow for a multiple-candidate election for president.
His most credible liberal challenger, Ayman Nour, remains in jail on trumped-up charges, and Mubarak's reform may prove to be little more than a ruse. But the old autocrat's attempt to crush the opposition movement Nour helped to create has clearly backfired, forcing him to improvise.
The Syrian President, Bashar Assad, looks even more desperate. Last week his regime issued a new promise to redeploy its troops in Lebanon, trying to deflect the growing pressure of the UN Security Council and a newly united Lebanese opposition.
Assad, like Mubarak, hoped the elimination of his most likely liberal adversary, the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, would stop an incipient freedom movement. Instead, he touched off one of the largest demonstrations of "people power" in the modern history of the Arab Middle East.
These are autocrats whose regimes had remained unaltered, and unchallenged, for decades. There has been no political ferment in Damascus since the 1960s, or in Cairo since the '50s. Now, within weeks of Iraq's elections, Mubarak and Assad are tacking with panicked haste between bold acts of repression, which invite an international backlash, and big promises of reform, which also may backfire if they prove to be empty. They could yet survive; but quite clearly the Arab autocrats don't regard the Bush dream of democratic dominoes as fanciful.
The Lebanese uprising is far more advanced than that of Egypt. But Mubarak has taken the boldest action, in part because he has almost as much to fear as Assad from the Beirut intifada. A forced Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon might spell the downfall of the Assad dynasty in Damascus. Either way, in the absence of Syrian coercion, the Lebanese parliamentary election in May would become the third democratic vote in the Arab world this year. That would make it politically impossible for Mubarak to extend his tenure by patently undemocratic means.
His announcement on Saturday was an effort to pre-empt that problem. But Egypt's "kifaya" movement - which has been demanding a democratic presidential election in growing demonstrations - won't be satisfied if the reform doesn't allow candidates like Nour to challenge Mubarak, and on a playing field levelled by the lifting of emergency laws and media restrictions. Nour is still in jail; until he is released, Mubarak's concession to democracy will have no credibility.
Virtually no one in Washington expected such a snowballing of events following Iraq's elections. Not many yet believe that they will lead to real democracy in Egypt, Lebanon or Syria soon. But it is a fact of history that the collapse of a rotted political order usually happens quickly, and takes most experts by surprise.
In early 1989 I surveyed a panoply of West German analysts about the chances that the then incipient and barely noticed unrest in Eastern Europe could lead to the collapse of the Berlin Wall. None thought it possible; most laughed at me for asking the question.
If a Middle East transformation begins to gather momentum, it will probably be more messy, and the results more ambiguous, than those European revolutions. It also won't be entirely Bush's creation: the tinder for ignition has been gathering around the stagnant and corrupt autocracies of the Middle East for years.
Still, less than two years after Saddam Hussein was deposed, Arabs are marching for freedom in the streets of Beirut and Cairo and shouting slogans against tyrants - and regimes that have endured for decades are visibly tottering.
Bush's fault!
(and I am soooo glad)
I used to believe in 'realism' a la young Marx. Not anymore. Realism which defy 'ideals' only brings us either to status quo or socialism.
Unless, of course, they have bothered to pay any attention at all in the last year to what the strategists have been saying. (Not the hand wringers... but rather, the strategists...) Some people assume that anyone who disagrees with the liberal philosophy is "Virtually no one in Washington"!
Personally I think "Bush (domestic) Fascism" will still be tops on the list...
I hate to quibble but didn't Wolfowitz predict these events? Bush also alluded to what could happen in many speeches.
Balderdash! After 6000 years Egypt suddenly lurches toward democracy?
No way to ascribe what has happened to dumb luck, it is George W. Bush's CREATION pure and simple, because he did it despite carping from those like the author of this article, EVERY STEP OF THE WAY.
LOL. That's what I was gonna say . . . with this kicker . . . It doesn't matter what "anyone" in Washington thinks, it only matters what GW thinks.
As I recall, Algeria was denied a democratic vote a while back because the Islamist fundamentalist were winning.
In Bosnia the same thing, Islamist fundamentalists wanted the whole country but the EU (NATO) gave them only a third, and is in the process of giving them Kosovo, lock stock and barrel, sans Serbs and Gypsies.
This has to be looked at a lot closer. A lot of spinning going on.
Would the fanatics win in Egypt in a fair vote? If yes then we'll blow all our gains in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Bush! Bush! Bush!
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