U.S. Embrace Can Be Fatal to Arabs
Only a year ago, American supporters of the Iraq war were in despair. The spread of the Iraqi insurgency -- and of anti-American sentiment throughout the Arab and Muslim world -- had undercut the claim of Paul Wolfowitz and others that Saddam Hussein's downfall would spark a wave of democratization in the region. If democracy meant burning cities, suicide attacks, life-threatening checkpoints and Abu Ghraib-style torture, Arabs and Muslims wanted nothing of it, something deeply reassuring to their autocratic rulers.
Today, the mood of the pro-war camp has changed to euphoria. The Iraqi and Palestinian elections, the mass demonstrations by Lebanese seeking an end to the Syrian presence, signs of a thaw in Hosni Mubarak's Egypt -- all these developments have breathed new life into the Wolfowitz Doctrine. The Iraqis may not have thrown rice and flowers our way, but, so the story goes, their liberation has prompted Arabs to challenge their own regimes, and the United States stands poised to reap the benefits of "democratization." (Even sensible observers like historian David Fromkin have likened the changes to the fall of the Berlin Wall, although the only thing resembling that wall in the region is the "separation barrier" Israel has built on Palestinian land.)
It's an appealing story but, unfortunately, it isn't true. If anything, the war was a gift to the jihadists. And to the extent that the Middle East has moved toward democracy, it's as much in spite of American pressure as because of it.
The current neoconservative object of desire is Lebanon, and it's a good case study of what's really happening in the region. When the anti-Syrian opposition gathered in Beirut's Martyrs Square to demand the withdrawal of Syrian troops, everyone from Thomas Friedman of the New York Times to Reuel Marc Gerecht of the American Enterprise Institute was quick to credit the Bush administration for inspiring the Lebanese. Never mind that the mobilization of Lebanon's opposition to Syrian rule was detonated by the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, not the Iraqi elections; that the cry was for independence, not democracy; and that Shiites, who at 40% of the population make up the country's largest religious group, were conspicuously absent from the demonstrations. Never mind that Lebanon already has elections (although they are held, as in Iraq and the Palestinian territories, under the watchful eye of an occupying power).
