Eegahblogging Spreads some Democracy

Crow: “Why are those buzzards circling? Hmm, neat”

Reload member Libaniz, a Beirut native, sent me an email last week bursting with pride at his Lebanese countrymen marching through the streets, demanding that the ‘Syrial’ killers abandon the country. He grew up among the violence and tragedy of Beirut, angry at both Israel and Syria alike for their meddling. Now a resident of the US, he’s often been as critical as I’ve been of the “right” in this country who seem oblivious to the realities and consequences of war. But this email had no harsh words for President Bush. This was a chance for those critical of Bush to realize that to some extent, Bush “gets” it. Although, even at a time when our President deserves credit for putting the pressure on Syria to pull out, it’s also good to make sure we don’t get carried away with how much of a catalyst he actually was for what happened there and whether any of this makes the invasion of Iraq seem any less misguided. In his latest Newsweek article, I think Fareed Zakaria gives Bush a bit too much credit for the week that was.

March 14 issue - Events in the Middle East over the past few weeks have confirmed the theories of that great scholar of the region, Thomas (Tip) O'Neill. The late speaker of the House's most memorable aphorism was "All politics is local." It's true even of the politics of rage. As long-repressed societies in the Middle East open up, we are discovering that their core concerns are not global but local. Most ordinary Arabs, it turns out, are not consumed by grand theories about the clash between Islam and the West, or the imperialism of American culture, or even the Palestinian cause. When you let the Lebanese speak, they want to talk about Syria's occupation of their country. When Iraqis got a chance to congregate, they voted for a government, not an insurgency. When a majority of Palestinians were heard from, they endorsed not holy terror to throw Israel into the sea, but practical diplomacy to get a state.

Tomorrow, were the Egyptian Street to voice its views—I mean the real Egyptian Street, not President Mubarak's state-controlled media—we would probably discover that its deepest discontent is directed not at the president of the United States, but at the president of Egypt. Perhaps Arabs and Muslims are not some strange species after all. It is their rulers who are strange.

The other noted political scientist who has been vindicated in recent weeks is George W. Bush. Across New York, Los Angeles and Chicago—and probably Europe and Asia as well—people are nervously asking themselves a question: "Could he possibly have been right?" The short answer is yes. Whether or not Bush deserves credit for everything that is happening in the Middle East, he has been fundamentally right about some big things.

Bush never accepted the view that Islamic terrorism had its roots in religion or culture or the Arab-Israeli conflict. Instead he veered toward the analysis that the region was breeding terror because it had developed deep dysfunctions caused by decades of repression and an almost total lack of political, economic and social modernization. The Arab world, in this analysis, was almost unique in that over the past three decades it had become increasingly unfree, even as the rest of the world was opening up. His solution, therefore, was to push for reform in these lands.

I guess this fits in with the theme of the Bush Administration of “If you set your goals low enough, you can achieve them all”. I don’t think there’s anyone who would argue with the notion that the major problems in the Middle East stem from the fact that they’ve become increasingly unfree. This is obvious. Although Juan Cole adds that the movement towards being less free came more from foreign occupation rather than tyranny. However, the politics of Al-Qaeda were different in that they were anything but local.

When they attacked New York, it was a sign that there was, in fact, a small element of the Arab discontent that did see the world as being within a giant struggle between Islam and the West, and did point to the Israeli-Palestinian situation as a major justification for their actions. When you ask whether or not George W. Bush was able to see this, you should be asking whether he understood that the mindset of Al-Qaeda was the exception, not the rule in the Middle East. By declaring that there was no way to distinguish between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, he flunked that test. In Iraq, politics were predominantly local, while for Al Qaeda, there was a perception of a giant struggle between the West and Muslims, and therefore a much more direct threat to us. By not recognizing this, he's ensured that we will pay for that misjudgment for years to come in Iraq.

People have often wished that the president had traveled more over the years. But Bush's capacity to imagine a different Middle East may actually be related to his relative ignorance of the region. Had he traveled to the Middle East and seen its many dysfunctions, he might have been disheartened. Freed from looking at the day-to-day realities, Bush maintained a vision of what the region could look like.

But therein lies the danger. It is easier to imagine liberal democracy than to achieve it. Ronald Reagan imagined a Soviet Union that was politically and economically free. Twenty years later, except for the Baltic states, not one country of the former Soviet Union has achieved that. There have been more than 50 elections in Africa in the past 15 years—some as moving as those in Iraq, had we bothered to notice them—but only a few of those countries can be described as free. Haiti has had elections and American intervention, and still has foreign troops stationed there. Yet only a few of these elections have led to successful and free societies.

Every country, culture and people yearns for freedom. But building real, sustainable democracy with rights and protections is complex. In Lebanon, for example, the absence of Syria will not mean the presence of a stable democracy. It was the collapse of Lebanon's internal political order that triggered the Syrian intervention in 1976. That problem will have to be solved, even after Syrian forces go home. In Iraq, the end of the old order has produced growing tendencies toward separatism and intolerance. Building democracy takes patience, deep and specific knowledge and, most important, the ability to partner with the locals.

If Bush is to be credited for the benefits of his policies, he must also take responsibility for their costs. Over the past three years, his administration has racked up enormous costs, many of which could easily have been lowered or avoided altogether. The pointless snubbing of allies, the brusque manner in which it went to war in Iraq, the undermanned occupation and the stubborn insistence (until last summer) on pursuing policies that were fueling both an insurgency and anti-Americanism in Iraq—all have taken their toll in thousands of American and Iraqi lives and almost $300 billion.

I’m still a little confused here. What are the benefits? Is Zakaria implying that the Lebanese took to the streets because they were inspired by Bush’s inauguration speech? Is he implying that Bush can take credit for Arafat’s death, and therefore the election that followed that put someone in office that Sharon was willing to talk to?

The most interesting argument I’ve heard in supporting the Palestinian half of that argument was from Fred Kaplan in Slate who believes that Saddam would have been able to interfere with internal Palestinian politics to the extent that it would have disrupted the post-Arafat atmosphere. I don’t buy that. It assumes that the absence of an invasion of Iraq equals the absence of any ability to keep Saddam restrained. The threat of war was already making Saddam do a lot of things he didn’t want to do. If Saddam was willing to destroy his missiles to avert war, he certainly would have been careful not to make waves in Palestinian politics.

Bush hasn’t done anything more than the bare minimum when it comes to both Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories, two lands under foreign occupation. Simply stating what's in tune with the rest of the world's opinion that an unwanted foreign occupation is a bad thing and needs to end is not terribly impressive. And with Iraq in the equation, it’s a point that’s slowly exposing us to the charge that America doesn’t play by its own rules.

For most countries, the debate over Iraq was not really about Iraq. It was about how America would wield its enormous global power. And to many countries, it seemed that the Bush administration was doing it irresponsibly. On this front, the signs from Bush's second term are heartening. In the Middle East, however, everything will depend on success on the ground. If, five years from now, Iraq, Afghanistan and perhaps an independent Palestine and a democratic Lebanon are thriving countries with modern political and economic systems, America will be honored and respected—and the talk of anti-American terror will have dissipated considerably. If, on the other hand, these countries are chaotic and troubled—more like Central Asia than Central Europe—people there will blame America. Remember, all politics is local.

I can’t tell if Zakaria is being ironic here, but the conclusion doesn’t fit the argument. If all politics are local, than any successful democracy in Lebanon will have no effect on people’s view of America. Libaniz happens to be the counter-argument to that point. There will be some small number of people who do see things on a global scale and will be thankful that Bush took their side in this struggle. But in reality, as someone who lives in America, he’s far from the average Lebanese.

If this situation plays out as successfully as the situation in the Ukraine, it will certainly give the Lebanese the kind of self-reliance that the founders of our country had, which laid a foundation for a strong democracy that has lasted for over 200 years. Zakaria wants to have it both ways and argues that all politics are local, but then also argues that America will take the credit or blame for everything that happens regardless of what they’ve actually done. And the Syrians, as if in direct response to Zakaria’s assertion that all politics is local, promoted a huge counter-demonstration organized by Hizbullah today, painting this situation as part of the larger struggle against the west and Israel.

Libaniz ended his mail to me hoping that this movement will be an inspiration to the rest of the Arab World. Recognizing that not all politics are local, it’s always very hard to gauge how much the politics of neighboring countries in the Middle East affect each other, but one thing is clear. If there’s finally a popular movement in the Middle East where the people put their collective foot up the ass of the tyrants and occupiers, the Bush Administration’s rhetoric may look like the foot, but because of Iraq, Israel, and other local conflicts where we’ve made huge mistakes, we’ll end up being the ass.