Good as usual:
The Region: The four horseman of inertia
By BARRY RUBIN
The US plans to present a major plan for Mideast democratization to a summit of industrialized states in June. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab countries have rejected the proposal before reading it. Their reasoning tells us a lot about how the contemporary Middle East works.
A joint statement by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Saudi Arabia's rulers affirmed that they want to "proceed on the path of development, modernization and reform in keeping with their people's interests and values," but only if it was compatible with "their specificities and Arab identity."
This stance would be quite understandable were it not a total lie.
Now it is not hard to understand why the leaders of dictatorial regimes in which power and wealth is monopolized by a small group do not want to cede their privileges. This is how dictatorships everywhere have always worked.
But these are not the rationales used by the regimes and their supporting bureaucrats, intellectuals, or media to justify their refusal to fight corruption, permit civil liberties, allow free speech, stop repressing moderate dissidents, and the many other ways they stay in power. In the Middle East a great deal of sand is thrown into the air, and it succeeds in obscuring these simple facts.
Precisely because regimes and their bureaucrats are able to persuade their peoples on these points – endlessly repeating their arguments and discrediting or silencing all alternative viewpoints – the Middle East has remained a zone of dictatorships while other regions have proved far more flexible toward change.
What are the main excuses used to reject not just the US plan but all serious efforts to bring about change? These are the four horseman of the Middle Eastern apocalypse which help account for the region's chronic state of disaster:
The Arab-Israeli conflict paradox. Nothing can change unless this issue is resolved, but Arab states ensure that it is not resolved by refusing compromise, backing terrorism, and letting Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat sabotage any chance for progress.
Thus, even moderate Egyptian intellectual Muhammad Sid-Ahmed said in Al-Ahram that under the US plan "The Palestinian cause would lose its specific character and central position" and leave the "region prisoner of interminable violence."
Yet what possible real connection does this issue really have with a better educational system, fair elections, freer speech, and less corruption in the Arab world?
America and state-sponsored xenophobia. The pretense here is that the US wants to impose a detailed program of specific changes on the Arab world. This is rejected as unwarranted (read "imperialistic") interference in sovereign states by a country with a record that makes it unworthy as a sponsor for democracy.
Former Arab League Secretary Esmat Abdel Meguid told the US, "How can you speak about democracy when you have these things that are happening in Palestine, and in Iraq? This is something that is very surprising to us. If [President Bush] would like to see democracy – that means equality, liberty, respect for others – this should be applied to what is happening in Palestine."
Again, this is what American slang calls "blowing smoke."
Are Arab regimes doing the US a favor if they consider treating their own people better? Moreover, as Secretary of State Colin Powell said in response to Arab criticisms of the US plan, "We're not looking for something to impose on the region, we're looking for things we can work with the region on."
Powell told a new, US-funded Arabic television channel: "I agree with the Egyptians and the Saudis: [Reform] can't be imposed from outside. It has to be accepted from the inside."
The leaks about the contents of the plan indicate that this is what it is: a series of mild, do-good programs to help civil society, train parliamentarians, and generally lay a long-term foundation for progress toward democracy. Good program or not, there's nothing extreme about it.
Arab and Islamic "specificity." When it suits them mainstream Arab intellectuals and journalists rage that the West talks about them as if they were "different." But other times the nationalists claim the requirements of Arab identity and Islam require a different system of government and society.
For example, Egyptian academic and editor Osama el-Ghazali Harb, who takes some liberal positions, protests that the US long supported traditionalists against reformers against the "long-term interests of the Middle East's people to further US interests in fighting communism, protecting the oil supply, and defending Israel's security."
This was done on the basis of stability being more important than democracy as well as under cover of "deference" to the traditions and local traits of traditional societies.
But which is it? Is the problem that the US supports the regimes – which makes it an imperialist boss – or that it challenges them, which makes it an imperialist aggressor?
Iraq. The Saudi-Egyptian statement demands the withdrawal of US-led occupation forces as soon as possible and a greater role for the UN. Again, though, is this an issue which should delay any change or even serious examination of the well-known shortcomings of Arab states and societies?
Is reform a favor to America for which some price should be extracted? The truly important issue is not what US policy should be on promoting democratization but rather the policy of the Arab rulers.
On this point, Powell is right: Change must come from the inside, and that is exactly why there isn't going to be any for a long time.
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