Sunday, August 21, 2005
Indifferent to Democracy
Why the Arab world roots for American failure in Iraq.
BY MICHAEL YOUNGFriday, August 19, 2005 12:01 a.m
.As the U.S. stumbles in Iraq, many in the Arab world (but also in the American academic left and isolationist right) have solemnly, at times pleasurably, described the situation as fitting retribution for "neocolonialism." The debate on America's imperial calling, particularly in the Middle East, is surely absorbing; yet from an Arab perspective, particularly that of the region's liberals, far more essential than how a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq might smash the Bush administration's hubris is the misfortune it will visit on Arabs striving for change.
Even assuming that carelessness long ago derailed American democratization ambitions in Iraq, failure will, at the very least, push democracy to a far lower rung of regional priorities. This will be a boon to the security-minded Arab regimes that most feared a regional democratic transformation in the first place. And those of the Iraq war's critics who, legitimately, bemoaned Washington's coddling of Arab dictators (but then refused to endorse the exception to the rule in Iraq) may one day see this or a subsequent administration again prefer the steadiness of tyrants to the wishy-washiness of Arab societies that seem to hate the U.S. far more dependably than they do their own lack of liberty.
Conceptually and politically, the Iraqi situation has shown the Arab world and its intellectuals at their stalemated worse. As an idea, the "neocolonial" paradigm is intriguing, because, rhetorically, it goes back decades to when Arab nationalism was at its peak. In holding to a storyline that the Iraqi conflict reflects an Arab desire for release from American hegemony, Arab critics are resurrecting an intellectual phantom. As Iraqis have fallen back on sect, tribe or ethnic loyalties, they have further demolished the myth of an all-encompassing Arab identity that, everywhere in the region, must dissolve primary identities. What the critics won't admit is that Iraq is yet another graveyard of Arab nationalism, not its avatar.
But even with respect to Iraqi nationalism, Arabs have little to cling to. Iraqi displeasure with the U.S. may be genuine, but has largely been framed parochially, not by a desire to re-create a broad Iraqi national self--though the impulse may yet be alive in some quarters. Is that letdown surprising? After all, Saddam Hussein's Baathist Iraq, like Hafez Assad's Syria, blended symbols of nationalism with the counterfeit comprehensiveness of Arab nationalism, all to burnish systems that were--are--duplicitous facades for minority rule.
It is politically, however, that Arab societies, specifically liberals, failed to see the advantages in the removal of Saddam, regardless of their antipathy to the Bush administration. Here was an opportunity to cheer on the emergence of an Arab democracy, with deep implications for democracy at home, and it was missed. More disturbing was that this need never have contradicted Iraqi sovereignty. Washington could have been repeatedly reminded by Arab democrats keen to see the Iraq project succeed for their own good, that true democracy meant, after a period of stabilization, allowing Iraq to be free of foreign interference. Yet other than from the Iraqis themselves, the argument was rarely heard in the Arab world; advantageous pragmatism was supplanted by stubborn attachment to principle--"principle" that, in yearning for American failure, ignored how Iraqis suffered from the ensuing carnage.
Saddam's fall was welcomed by shamefully few Arabs (I recall how, on the day of his capture, a liberal Arab intellectual living in the U.S. mainly regretted that this would bolster George W. Bush's popularity ratings): The "humiliation" of seeing an Arab leader toppled by Western armies far outweighed that of seeing one of the most talented of Arab societies, the Middle East's Germany, subjected to a ferocious despotism responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. Nor was there much interest regionally in the discovery of the Baath's mass graves. One reason was the secondary concern that many Arab societies have for Saddam's foremost victims--the Shiites and Kurds; but the main cause of indifference was that Saddam's crimes, if acknowledged, threatened to imply the Arabs' inability to responsibly manage their own emancipation.
In other words, applauding his ouster meant admitting that the Arab world could produce no better, and deserved no better than Western armies in its midst. This rationale was nonsense, but spawned a cliché that Arab intellectuals routinely peddle: that Arab reform must come "from within"--though the notion would have been laughable in Baathist Iraq. Arab societies must indeed open up from inside, but absent an echo, sometimes a determining one, from outside--including the option of foreign military action--little will change.
Arab rejection of the Iraqi project rested on another foundation: sympathy for the Palestinians. Here again, Iraq offered opportunities never considered. How could the U.S. be serious about Iraqi democracy, the critics muttered, when Palestinians still suffered? The statement was a non sequitur, but it undercut efforts to draw on what was best in Iraq to advance Arab liberty and Palestinian self-determination.
Some neocons indeed argued that victory in Iraq, by sounding the death knell of terrorism, would oblige Palestinians to accept a settlement with Israel. This was incredibly simplistic, but no less so is the widely held view in the Arab world that Iraq was mainly done to help Israel. There is little evidence of even a consensus in Israel over Iraq, let alone that the alligator-skinned Ariel Sharon seriously bought into a plan positing Arab democracy. But again, that is less important than another question: Could Arabs have used Iraq to help the Palestinians?
The answer seems evident. From the Arab side, encouragement of a democratic Iraq, and its fulfillment, would have proved the viability of an Arab democracy, denting Israel's presumption that it is the "only democracy in the Middle East." By becoming a dominant cornerstone of U.S. policy, Iraq would have relativized Israel's paramountcy; and a truly representative Iraq would have highlighted Israel's denial of Palestinian representativeness in the occupied territories. For all these reasons, American achievement in Iraq could have been looked on with greater self-interested approval and imagination by the Arab publics. It never was.
How the U.S. adventure in Iraq ends is anybody's guess. However, its repercussions will be felt, first, by the Arabs themselves. By refusing to profit from the prospective democratic upheaval that Saddam's removal ushered in; by never looking beyond the American messenger in Iraq to the message itself; by lamenting external hegemony while doing nothing to render it pointless, Arabs merely affirmed their impotence. The self-pitying Arab reaction to the Iraq war showed the terrible sway of the status quo in the Middle East. An inability to marshal change for one's benefit is the stuff of captive minds.Mr. Young, a Lebanese national, is opinion editor at the Daily Star in Beirut and a contributing editor at Reason magazine.
Why the Arab world roots for American failure in Iraq.
BY MICHAEL YOUNGFriday, August 19, 2005 12:01 a.m
.As the U.S. stumbles in Iraq, many in the Arab world (but also in the American academic left and isolationist right) have solemnly, at times pleasurably, described the situation as fitting retribution for "neocolonialism." The debate on America's imperial calling, particularly in the Middle East, is surely absorbing; yet from an Arab perspective, particularly that of the region's liberals, far more essential than how a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq might smash the Bush administration's hubris is the misfortune it will visit on Arabs striving for change.
Even assuming that carelessness long ago derailed American democratization ambitions in Iraq, failure will, at the very least, push democracy to a far lower rung of regional priorities. This will be a boon to the security-minded Arab regimes that most feared a regional democratic transformation in the first place. And those of the Iraq war's critics who, legitimately, bemoaned Washington's coddling of Arab dictators (but then refused to endorse the exception to the rule in Iraq) may one day see this or a subsequent administration again prefer the steadiness of tyrants to the wishy-washiness of Arab societies that seem to hate the U.S. far more dependably than they do their own lack of liberty.
Conceptually and politically, the Iraqi situation has shown the Arab world and its intellectuals at their stalemated worse. As an idea, the "neocolonial" paradigm is intriguing, because, rhetorically, it goes back decades to when Arab nationalism was at its peak. In holding to a storyline that the Iraqi conflict reflects an Arab desire for release from American hegemony, Arab critics are resurrecting an intellectual phantom. As Iraqis have fallen back on sect, tribe or ethnic loyalties, they have further demolished the myth of an all-encompassing Arab identity that, everywhere in the region, must dissolve primary identities. What the critics won't admit is that Iraq is yet another graveyard of Arab nationalism, not its avatar.
But even with respect to Iraqi nationalism, Arabs have little to cling to. Iraqi displeasure with the U.S. may be genuine, but has largely been framed parochially, not by a desire to re-create a broad Iraqi national self--though the impulse may yet be alive in some quarters. Is that letdown surprising? After all, Saddam Hussein's Baathist Iraq, like Hafez Assad's Syria, blended symbols of nationalism with the counterfeit comprehensiveness of Arab nationalism, all to burnish systems that were--are--duplicitous facades for minority rule.
It is politically, however, that Arab societies, specifically liberals, failed to see the advantages in the removal of Saddam, regardless of their antipathy to the Bush administration. Here was an opportunity to cheer on the emergence of an Arab democracy, with deep implications for democracy at home, and it was missed. More disturbing was that this need never have contradicted Iraqi sovereignty. Washington could have been repeatedly reminded by Arab democrats keen to see the Iraq project succeed for their own good, that true democracy meant, after a period of stabilization, allowing Iraq to be free of foreign interference. Yet other than from the Iraqis themselves, the argument was rarely heard in the Arab world; advantageous pragmatism was supplanted by stubborn attachment to principle--"principle" that, in yearning for American failure, ignored how Iraqis suffered from the ensuing carnage.
Saddam's fall was welcomed by shamefully few Arabs (I recall how, on the day of his capture, a liberal Arab intellectual living in the U.S. mainly regretted that this would bolster George W. Bush's popularity ratings): The "humiliation" of seeing an Arab leader toppled by Western armies far outweighed that of seeing one of the most talented of Arab societies, the Middle East's Germany, subjected to a ferocious despotism responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. Nor was there much interest regionally in the discovery of the Baath's mass graves. One reason was the secondary concern that many Arab societies have for Saddam's foremost victims--the Shiites and Kurds; but the main cause of indifference was that Saddam's crimes, if acknowledged, threatened to imply the Arabs' inability to responsibly manage their own emancipation.
In other words, applauding his ouster meant admitting that the Arab world could produce no better, and deserved no better than Western armies in its midst. This rationale was nonsense, but spawned a cliché that Arab intellectuals routinely peddle: that Arab reform must come "from within"--though the notion would have been laughable in Baathist Iraq. Arab societies must indeed open up from inside, but absent an echo, sometimes a determining one, from outside--including the option of foreign military action--little will change.
Arab rejection of the Iraqi project rested on another foundation: sympathy for the Palestinians. Here again, Iraq offered opportunities never considered. How could the U.S. be serious about Iraqi democracy, the critics muttered, when Palestinians still suffered? The statement was a non sequitur, but it undercut efforts to draw on what was best in Iraq to advance Arab liberty and Palestinian self-determination.
Some neocons indeed argued that victory in Iraq, by sounding the death knell of terrorism, would oblige Palestinians to accept a settlement with Israel. This was incredibly simplistic, but no less so is the widely held view in the Arab world that Iraq was mainly done to help Israel. There is little evidence of even a consensus in Israel over Iraq, let alone that the alligator-skinned Ariel Sharon seriously bought into a plan positing Arab democracy. But again, that is less important than another question: Could Arabs have used Iraq to help the Palestinians?
The answer seems evident. From the Arab side, encouragement of a democratic Iraq, and its fulfillment, would have proved the viability of an Arab democracy, denting Israel's presumption that it is the "only democracy in the Middle East." By becoming a dominant cornerstone of U.S. policy, Iraq would have relativized Israel's paramountcy; and a truly representative Iraq would have highlighted Israel's denial of Palestinian representativeness in the occupied territories. For all these reasons, American achievement in Iraq could have been looked on with greater self-interested approval and imagination by the Arab publics. It never was.
How the U.S. adventure in Iraq ends is anybody's guess. However, its repercussions will be felt, first, by the Arabs themselves. By refusing to profit from the prospective democratic upheaval that Saddam's removal ushered in; by never looking beyond the American messenger in Iraq to the message itself; by lamenting external hegemony while doing nothing to render it pointless, Arabs merely affirmed their impotence. The self-pitying Arab reaction to the Iraq war showed the terrible sway of the status quo in the Middle East. An inability to marshal change for one's benefit is the stuff of captive minds.Mr. Young, a Lebanese national, is opinion editor at the Daily Star in Beirut and a contributing editor at Reason magazine.
Hamastan? Gaza pullout is worth the risk
Max BootAugust 17, 2005
FOR ALMOST 40 years, the conceit has been growing around the world that Palestinian terrorism can be explained and even excused by Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This was always a dubious proposition in light of the fact that Arabs have been fighting Israel since its formation in 1948, not since its conquest of those territories in 1967. The Palestine Liberation Organization began its attacks while the West Bank was still part of Jordan and Gaza was part of Egypt.Now the Israeli decision to remove its settlers from the Gaza Strip and a small portion of the West Bank should provide a further test of the belief that Jewish settlements are the root cause of this conflict. If this were in fact the case, you would expect that a partial pullout would lead to at least a partial melting of Arab hostility toward the Jews. Maybe this will occur; and maybe the Gaza Strip will overnight become as peaceful as Switzerland.The early signs are not good — literally. Gaza City is decked out with green Hamas banners proclaiming, "Resistance wins, so let's go on." The banners from the supposedly more restrained Palestinian Authority reveal the same mind-set: "Gaza today, the West Bank and Jerusalem tomorrow." Far from being sated by Israeli concessions, the Palestinians are emboldened to demand more. Many will not be satisfied until — in the words of a 15-year-old would-be suicide bomber quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle — there are no more "Jews on this world."So does this mean that Ariel Sharon is making a big mistake? It certainly means he is taking a risk — the risk of creating a Hamastan where terrorism will flourish — but, on balance, it is the right decision.The Gaza settlements were simply not sustainable. Approximately 8,500 Jews could not live safely among 1.3 million Arabs. That may be a sad commentary on the Arabs, considering that a million Arabs live safely among 5 million Jews in Israel, but that's life. The Gaza settlers had a right to risk their own necks but not the necks of soldiers who had to protect them. Sooner or later they would have had to go. If Sharon had waited, like his predecessors, for a comprehensive peace treaty with the Palestinians before the inevitable pullout, he would have waited until kingdom come. In the meantime the settlements would have remained an easy debating point for Palestinian propagandists.By removing the settlements on his own initiative, Sharon has helped to regain the initiative — moral and political — for the Jewish state. The international opprobrium into which Israel had sunk was not fatal to its existence, but it was not good either. Israelis feel themselves part of the West, and it is deeply dispiriting for them to be shunned by every Western country except the U.S. The pullout, on top of the concessions offered by Ehud Barak at Camp David five years ago, eases (if not erases) the onus on Israel and puts pressure on the Palestinians to get their own house in order.Opponents of the withdrawal cite parallels with the 2000 Israeli evacuation of southern Lebanon, which helped spark the second intifada, but the danger now is much less. Even if Palestinians want to attack Israel — and they do — they will be hard-pressed to do so. All of Gaza is fenced in and so is most of the West Bank, reducing opportunities for suicide bombers to penetrate Israel. If the Palestinians fire rockets from Gaza, Israel will be free to mount a military response — more free, in fact, when the threat comes from a sovereign Palestinian state than when it emanates from Israeli-occupied territory. The Palestinians will no doubt stockpile heavy weapons in Gaza but, as is the case with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, they can be deterred from using them.The real danger from Gaza may not be to Israel but to the rest of the West. The Israeli army has battled terrorist groups in a way that the Palestinian Authority has neither the power nor, in all likelihood, the desire to do. If, following the Israeli pullout, Gaza becomes another training ground for Islamo-fascist fanatics — a successor to Afghanistan under the Taliban — the resulting terrorists will find the U.S. and Europe much easier targets than Israel, which is the world's most heavily defended state. Irony of ironies, perhaps in a few years enlightened Westerners will rue the day when Israel gave up control of Gaza.
Max BootAugust 17, 2005
FOR ALMOST 40 years, the conceit has been growing around the world that Palestinian terrorism can be explained and even excused by Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This was always a dubious proposition in light of the fact that Arabs have been fighting Israel since its formation in 1948, not since its conquest of those territories in 1967. The Palestine Liberation Organization began its attacks while the West Bank was still part of Jordan and Gaza was part of Egypt.Now the Israeli decision to remove its settlers from the Gaza Strip and a small portion of the West Bank should provide a further test of the belief that Jewish settlements are the root cause of this conflict. If this were in fact the case, you would expect that a partial pullout would lead to at least a partial melting of Arab hostility toward the Jews. Maybe this will occur; and maybe the Gaza Strip will overnight become as peaceful as Switzerland.The early signs are not good — literally. Gaza City is decked out with green Hamas banners proclaiming, "Resistance wins, so let's go on." The banners from the supposedly more restrained Palestinian Authority reveal the same mind-set: "Gaza today, the West Bank and Jerusalem tomorrow." Far from being sated by Israeli concessions, the Palestinians are emboldened to demand more. Many will not be satisfied until — in the words of a 15-year-old would-be suicide bomber quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle — there are no more "Jews on this world."So does this mean that Ariel Sharon is making a big mistake? It certainly means he is taking a risk — the risk of creating a Hamastan where terrorism will flourish — but, on balance, it is the right decision.The Gaza settlements were simply not sustainable. Approximately 8,500 Jews could not live safely among 1.3 million Arabs. That may be a sad commentary on the Arabs, considering that a million Arabs live safely among 5 million Jews in Israel, but that's life. The Gaza settlers had a right to risk their own necks but not the necks of soldiers who had to protect them. Sooner or later they would have had to go. If Sharon had waited, like his predecessors, for a comprehensive peace treaty with the Palestinians before the inevitable pullout, he would have waited until kingdom come. In the meantime the settlements would have remained an easy debating point for Palestinian propagandists.By removing the settlements on his own initiative, Sharon has helped to regain the initiative — moral and political — for the Jewish state. The international opprobrium into which Israel had sunk was not fatal to its existence, but it was not good either. Israelis feel themselves part of the West, and it is deeply dispiriting for them to be shunned by every Western country except the U.S. The pullout, on top of the concessions offered by Ehud Barak at Camp David five years ago, eases (if not erases) the onus on Israel and puts pressure on the Palestinians to get their own house in order.Opponents of the withdrawal cite parallels with the 2000 Israeli evacuation of southern Lebanon, which helped spark the second intifada, but the danger now is much less. Even if Palestinians want to attack Israel — and they do — they will be hard-pressed to do so. All of Gaza is fenced in and so is most of the West Bank, reducing opportunities for suicide bombers to penetrate Israel. If the Palestinians fire rockets from Gaza, Israel will be free to mount a military response — more free, in fact, when the threat comes from a sovereign Palestinian state than when it emanates from Israeli-occupied territory. The Palestinians will no doubt stockpile heavy weapons in Gaza but, as is the case with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, they can be deterred from using them.The real danger from Gaza may not be to Israel but to the rest of the West. The Israeli army has battled terrorist groups in a way that the Palestinian Authority has neither the power nor, in all likelihood, the desire to do. If, following the Israeli pullout, Gaza becomes another training ground for Islamo-fascist fanatics — a successor to Afghanistan under the Taliban — the resulting terrorists will find the U.S. and Europe much easier targets than Israel, which is the world's most heavily defended state. Irony of ironies, perhaps in a few years enlightened Westerners will rue the day when Israel gave up control of Gaza.
