New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | March 8, 2005

As we all know, other countries exist primarily to provide ammo for partisan political debates in the U.S. Still, Jesse Walker suggests it may be worth trying to analyze democratic reform in the Middle East on its own terms.

Comments

fyodor|3.8.05 @ 6:55PM|#

Is Gillespie going to fire Walker for writing himself out of rational debate on the subject?

|3.8.05 @ 11:29PM|#

The link on the left side of the page that is supposed to link to this story is pointing to the "Goldwater Democrats" story from yesterday. Please change the "links030705.shtml" to "links030805.shtml". That, or just wait for it to scroll off the page tomorrow. Whatever. :-p

|3.8.05 @ 11:53PM|#

fyodor,

*ouch* :)

|3.9.05 @ 2:05AM|#

Jesse:

Breathe deeply. For a moment, forget our stateside struggles, and try to take the Middle East on its own terms.

Great advice and great column, Jesse.

I think that it was Reagan who said that wonders can be worked when folks quit worrying about who's going to get the credit. Jesse's advice is to quit worrying about the credit *and* the blame. These worries cloud our our perception and with out them, we might better understand Mid-east truths.

...the national-security case for the invasion was still in tatters, and that's the only one that mattered to me.

Me too, and I'm still angry and disappointed about the lies that went into making that case. I consider the only valid reason for the war-any war- is that if the national-security concerns for prosecuting it are real. They weren't, and many of the key motivators of the Iraq war had, for years, first advocated regime change in Iraq as being a good thing not so much for America, as for the Israeli government.

So, since the war was and is unnecessary for our security, I'm for bring the troops home. But, the case for brining them home still obtains if your main concern is advancing liberty in the Mid-east. Why? Because our government has been too hypocritical and too supportive of anti-liberty regimes to lead the vanguard for a freer Middle East.

Jesse lays out some examples:

In 2003, after the American occupiers cancelled local votes and announced that there'd be no national balloting until a constitution was drafted, Sistani demanded elections in a fatwa. He stepped up his protests after the U.S. proposed an indirect vote that would be easier for the Americans to control

Fox doesn't cover this history too well in it's "Democratic Iraq" exposes.

Shi'ite followers marched in the streets of Baghdad in early 2004, and 30,000 held a similar demonstration in Basra. Among their chants: "Yes, yes to elections! No, no to occupation!"

These folks sound like they've learned an important lesson in liberty.

Few have paused to ponder the paradox that the most successful recent grassroots campaign in the Middle East was both a product of the American occupation and aimed at the American occupiers.

Beautiful observation. And before the promise of liberty for the Iraqi people can possibly come to fruition, the occupation must end.

(The wall) had dire effects for many ordinary Palestinians who now find their property confiscated and their movements curtailed... "more and more Palestinians find themselves trapped into enclaves and cantons, unable to have any semblance of a normal life."

The US government pays for the Israeli government's brutal and, now with the wall, increasingly thieving occupation of Palestinian land. With this hypocrisy, the US government is ill equipped to lead the moral charge for liberty in the Mid-east. Enemies of a liberal order will use our government's support of the Occupation as weapon against a freer Mid-eat as long as our government continues to both support the occupation and hold itself up as being for liberty.

Another of the tragedies of the occupation of Palestinian land is that most of the Arab world would do well to learn from many of Israel's freer ways, but they are blinded by the reality of the occupation...an occupation paid for by the US government.

Bush's call's for the Mid-east to be a place of greater individual liberty must seem quite insincere to Arabs who know that Sharon, head of the Israeli state that gets Billion of US tax dollars every year, actually supported racist "Jews Only" housing laws for government land in open discrimination against Israel's own 15% to 20% Arab citizen population:

http://www.eto.home.att.net/jewsonly.html

http://www.newsfrombabylon.com/article.php?sid=1779

And then there's Egypt. President Hosni Mubarak announced what he called a "new era of reform" late last month with the news that his country would hold its first multiparty elections in over 50 years. Hardly anyone thinks he has a genuinely competitive contest in mind, let alone the sort of liberalization that would entail releasing all his political prisoners and embracing open political debate.

The Egyptian government is savage against political opposition. The political prisoners are subjected to hideous torture. (BTW-the Egyptian government now uses "fighting terror" as an excuse for its barbaric behavior) Thousands of political prisoners go unaccounted for, for years, with all the Hell that that implies for their relatives. Our government gives this savage regime three billion of our dollars a year!

It's understandable that Arab people don't trust the US government. Our government can only give liberty a bad name by its association with it. It's time for our government and its dollars to come home from the Mid-east and let private citizens figure out how to help Arab peoples achieve more liberty, and which of the Arab peoples want or need help.

|3.9.05 @ 7:10AM|#

Well done Jesse.

And, despite the often insightful commentary from Reason's Beiruti connection trio, they too often miss that the center of gravity in the Arab Middle East is not the regionally-eccentric Beirut (or Cairene) bourgeoisie. It is the fellahin, the small-town peasantry, part of which are also the big city slumdwellers.

Maddeningly (though not always rigidly or uniformly) backward, typically passive, genially non-aggressive til provoked directly, and by no means homogeneous in interest (Sunni v Shiite fellahin in Iraq), when they show up things happen, or when they get out of the way things happen.

The centrality of the fellah is why the Palestinian issue is so resonant and durable, the saga of displacement and humiliation hits home everywhere there, in an almost literal sense of "hit home".

Now the fellahin Shiites have shown up in Beirut and outnumbered the Beiruti bourgeoisie. (I happen to agree with the Beiruti bourgeoisie on this but they will not be decisive in making their initiatives stick unless the fellahin follow or are persuaded to demur). (Same with the Cairo bourgeoisie and Mubarak).

We need to look at the mideast for what and who it is and it is not particularly the miniskirts of Marytr's Square, or even the disaffected bourgoisie of alQaeda.

It is indeed on their own terms.

|3.9.05 @ 10:41AM|#

The distinction between the urban elite and the fellahin is interesting. I'm reminded of the Indian elections last year: because urban sophisticated India was doing well, everyone assumed the party in power would be re-elected. But rural India and urban poor India (80% of the populace) wasn't doing so well and they threw out the party in power.

gaius marius|3.9.05 @ 11:02AM|#

Within Iraq, it sparked Sistani's peaceful protests�and it also sparked a violent insurgency. Outside Iraq, preexisting patterns of all kinds are intensified. There's a wave of nonviolent movements against injustice; there's also a wave of terrorism.

i think that this had a name before 2003 -- "destabilization".

fyodor|3.9.05 @ 12:31PM|#

Jesse's suggestion to not worry about who to credit or blame is quite commendable in a variety of ways, yet at the same time, the fact remains that people are, rightly or wrongly, going to draw conclusions about how US actions in the region played a role. Ie, even if you or I would still not use force in the future in lieu of a direct security threat no matter what else happens in the Mid East, the appearance that this attack is having indirect benefits for our security will surely sway others. And it's not altogether wrong to consider such matters either, and one only has to consider how antiwar constituencies would react if the opposite were occurring throughout the region to understand why, although one hopes (against hope) to focus on the actual policies as opposed to the personalities involved (the biggest stumbling block for partisan types). I think Jesse makes some good points that are contrary to the widely accepted notion that the democratic movements in the region primarily have the US to thank, but I wonder if his article is open to the charge of cherry-picking. As much as I want to believe the case against the Iraq War being the essential ingredient to glimmering (although as yet quite possibly premature) hopes of Mid East democratization, I very much wonder if the anti-Syrian Lebanese protesters have been emboldened by a perception that Syria's position has been compromised by its fear of US intentions, meaning that it's not one or the other, but the combination of the two, which would be enough to say our actions played an important and beneficial role. Of course, any one policy can have both its good effects and bad, and just because there may be some truth to the aforementioned analysis does not mean that there may not be other not-so-great consequences to this intervention that could overshadow this possible benefit. Anyway, it's all a bit premature to say anything with certainty right now. But don't ignore the fact that that won't stop others!

|3.9.05 @ 1:40PM|#

But rural India and urban poor India (80% of the populace) wasn't doing so well and they threw out the party in power.

And because they were stupid enough to do so, it'll take even longer for most of them to "do well". Many Lebanese don't appear to be much brighter.

|3.9.05 @ 2:19PM|#

If only the urban poor of Calcutta understood the interests of the urban poor of Calcutta as well and our own Eric II...

Jesse Walker|3.9.05 @ 2:24PM|#

I very much wonder if the anti-Syrian Lebanese protesters have been emboldened by a perception that Syria's position has been compromised by its fear of US intentions

I think that's probably true. Though I also think a fear of the US is helping motivate the demonstrators on the other side.

(Well, that and the related matter of Hizbollah not wanting to disarm.)

|3.9.05 @ 3:03PM|#

If only the urban poor of Calcutta understood the interests of the urban poor of Calcutta as well and our own Eric II...

I've been to India several times (most recently about a year ago) and read the web sites of English-language newspapers on a frequent basis. I haven't been to Calcutta, but have seen the slums of Mumbai, and a number of small towns and villages in northern and western India, up close. Maybe I don't know the place as well as a native, but I know it fairly well (hint: my first name is misleading).

It's funny that you mentioned Calcutta, though. Calcutta, along with the rest of West Bengal, has seen its economy run into the ground by a succession of Communist-led governments, with the state having gone from being one of India's wealthiest to one of its poorest as a result. Those very same Communists made big gains in the last election and provide crucial support to the current government, support that they're using to oppose critical economic reforms and demand wasteful social spending programs that mostly enrich corrupt bureaucrats and are keeping the annual budget deficit at exorbitant levels.

But I'm sure you already knew that.

fyodor|3.9.05 @ 3:55PM|#

Jesse,

Hmm, interesting point there. I guess once that chaotic butterfly starts its wings flapping, all sorts of shit hits the fan!! (to mix a metaphor...)