Shibley Telhami Response

The American project to spread democracy in the Middle East in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, and the Iraq War was doomed from the outset. That’s not because the Middle East is not compatible with democracy, but because the project was based on contradictions and erroneous assumptions.

Spreading democracy as a goal of American foreign policy is not new, especially as a reflection of American values. Even in the Middle East, the administration of George H. W. Bush pushed for democratic reform as a priority following the end of the cold war in 1989 and was instrumental in promoting elections in Jordan and elsewhere. During the first few months of the Clinton administration, Secretary of State Warren Christopher spoke of democracy and reform and even raised the issue with Arab leaders.

What happened in both cases was telling. Not only did Islamists do well in the elections in Jordan and Algeria, but those countries that reformed and thus became sensitive to their public opinion were the most reluctant to cooperate with the United States after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. In the second case, the Clinton administration’s need to rally regional support for the emerging Oslo agreements between Israel and the Palestinians, and its fear of Islamists’ mobilizing to derail these agreements, once again sidelined the democracy question.

But since September 11, the policy of spreading democracy was sold as a strategic objective, not merely as part of spreading American values. The assumption was that the very terrorism that America faced was in part a function of the absence of democracy in the Middle East. That this notion has little factual support mattered little. More important, any benefits that would accrue from such a policy would only follow the emergence of mature democratic institutions, which even under the best of circumstances, would take decades.

Meanwhile, much of the literature shows that moving from authoritarianism to democracy is an unpredictable and destabilizing path. Thus, it should have been clear from the outset that neither the public in America nor the public in the Middle East would see benefits that justified the course. Even worse, the very terrorism that elevated the democracy policy in America’s priorities was likely to increase, as it thrives where central authority is weak and instability is widespread.

Indeed it is ironic that the three countries that were highlighted as true successes of the democracy policy—Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine—are now the subject of considerable concern and instability. But there is more about the troubling dynamics, even in places where instability did not spread, at least visibly, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, where something else worked against the spread of democracy.

At the same time that the United States asked governments to reform, it also asked them to support policies in Iraq, the war on terrorism, and the Arab-Israeli issue ...