U.S. preparing major shift in Mideast policy
The Bush administration has launched a plan to promote democracy in the Middle East and South Asia that will adapt a 30-year-old model used to press for freedoms in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
Senior White House and State Department officials have begun talks with key European allies about a master plan to be put forward this summer at summits of the Group of Eight nations, NATO allies and the European Union, U.S. officials said. With international backing, the United States then hopes to win commitments of action from Middle Eastern and South Asian countries.
"It's a sweeping change in the way we approach the Middle East," a senior State Department official said.
Details are being crafted, but the initiative would call for Arab and South Asian governments to adopt major political reforms, be held accountable on human rights — particularly women's empowerment — and introduce economic reforms, U.S. and European officials said.
As incentives for the targeted countries to cooperate, Western nations would offer to expand political engagement, increase aid, facilitate membership in the World Trade Organization and foster security arrangements, possibly some equivalent of the Partnership for Peace with former Eastern Bloc countries.
The U.S. approach is loosely modeled on the 1975 Helsinki Accords signed by 35 nations, including the United States, the Soviet Union and almost all European countries. It was designed to recognize disputed post-World War II borders and establish a mechanism for settling other disagreements, but human rights and fundamental freedoms became key parts of the treaty, giving the West leverage to promote and protect dissident groups in the Soviet bloc and urge greater freedoms for its residents.
"There is a belief that (Helsinki) contributed to bringing Europe together and played a significant role in tearing down the Soviet Union," said a State Department official. "In the same way, this idea would tear down the attractiveness of (Islamic) extremism."
Unlike Helsinki, however, the administration's "Greater Middle East Initiative" seeks to avoid creating committees and structures to strictly monitor progress and issue report cards, U.S. officials said. It also seeks to avoid appearing to dictate to the Islamic world.
"The idea is not to come out with proposals that say 'This is how the West thinks you guys should live,' " a senior administration official said. "This can't be seen as telling these guys what to do. That won't work.
"It is instead about saying 'We hear voices in the greater Middle East region who want democracy and reform, and here are the things we can do to support them.' "
"The key to all of this is to get the (Muslim) countries in question to feel ownership in this process," a Danish diplomat said. The administration's general goal is to put meat on the bones of President Bush's call for political change throughout the Islamic world, outlined in two speeches last fall at the National Endowment for Democracy and in London, U.S. officials said.
The administration originally said ousting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and creating a Palestinian state would serve as catalysts for democracy. But now that the Arab-Israeli peace process is deadlocked and Iraq's political transition is in trouble, the United States is attempting to leapfrog to generate political change in the region, U.S. and European officials said.
European governments generally support the idea, but they have varying degrees of skepticism about whether a Helsinki-like approach will work in the Middle East, U.S. and European officials said. Moreover, Arab countries may find political change difficult and are more likely to be susceptible to Islamic movements as long as the Arab-Israeli conflict goes unresolved.
"We welcome the goal, but we want to see how the Americans plan to get there," a European envoy said. "We've been trying for a while, and efforts at modernization don't easily seep through to politics."
seattletimes.nwsource.com
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