Friedman on Arab Reform
By Diplomad
Thoughts from the Deputy Chief Diplomad for Zionist Affairs:
NYT Columnist Thomas Friedman, whom the Diplomad usually views as very sensible, even when we disagree, Thursday argues that Arab Reform initiatives only work when we leave the Arabs alone to reform themselves when, essentially, they feel like it. There is merit to some of this argument, to wit, that at some point the Arabs themselves have to take ownership of the idea of reform, but Friedman misses two key points:
(1) September 11 taught us that we can't wait indefinitely for Arab societies to feel their way towards reform; and,
(2) Does Friedman or anybody else really believe that there would be so much scrambling around nowadays to push reform if the US wasn't seriously interested in it?
Diplomads often attend Middle East reform conferences all over the world, especially in Europe and the Middle East itself. It becomes obvious that a kind of chattering-class political correctness tends to pervade these meetings: America is wrong to have invaded Iraq; America must pressure Israel in order to solve MEPP; then we can talk about reform, you can't impose reform by force from outside, etc. Representatives from Arab governments tend to squirm and rant the most when rebutting the basic idea behind the U.S. Government's push for Arab reform: that democratic societies tend not to produce terrorists or wars. Europeans tend to drone on about the Barcelona Process, which they say has just celebrated its tenth anniversary.
The Diplomad response to this is to wonder, "What the hell has the Barcelona Process ever accomplished?" It's like humor columnist Dave Barry saying that the CIA has been "proudly overthrowing Fidel Castro since 1962." It becomes clear that most Arab elites and their Eurocrat friends LIKE the Barcelona Process so much and object so loudly to Bush Administration initiatives precisely because the former does not require results while those pesky Neocons running loose in Washington actually expect results.
The good news is that genuine reformers in the Arab world (go to Iraq the Model ) actually like the neocons and the Bush Administration's transformationalist policies. Some of the reformers actually show up at these international conferences and speak their mind. They're the ones that will eventually be running their countries, if at some point they become free and democratic. |
