- As the presidential campaign sharpened in America, it
was to be expected that the Bush administration's Middle East policies,
already misguided in critical ways, would be further distorted. There is
the race towards an arbitrarily chosen date this summer on which sovereignty
will be handed to the Iraqis, a change that may prove either cosmetic or
convulsive, perhaps both. There is the push to subsume Ariel Sharon's plans
for unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and a unilateral division of the West
Bank into a supposed resumption of the peace process. And, thirdly, there
is the effort to create a grand scheme under which the industrialised countries
are to aid in the democratisation of the whole Middle East.
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- What the three have in common is that they are designed
to suggest to the American electorate that American policies are proceeding
effectively, that other countries are willingly sharing the burden, and
that the United Nations is on board. What they also have in common, beyond
the intention of spiking John Kerry's guns, is their limited substance,
their intention of involving America's allies in a show of alleged progress,
and the fact that they could prove counterproductive.
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- This is dubious ground, on which the EU, Russia and the
UN should tread with care. It is not that stability and democracy in Iraq
are not goals worth pursuing. It might even be argued that a determined
America could bolt on to Sharon's idea of bolting from Gaza a peace plan
worthy of the name. And it is true that there are manifestations of democracy
in the region. A tougher attitude by western countries toward the authoritarian
regimes they have supported, and more aid for grassroots organisations,
might help.
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- But this is subject to important provisions - that things
be done at the proper time, in the proper sequence, and in the proper way
- unlikely to be observed in practice. To be in too much of a rush in Iraq,
to be in no hurry to tackle the real issues in Israel and Palestine, and
to want to see a kind of instant celestial choir-singing democracy over
the region suggests at best a dangerous lack of seriousness: the first
needs to be done more slowly and surely; the second both more quickly and
differently; and the third more discreetly.
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- The worst aspect is that US policy appears to be aimed
at establishing that progress across the region is possible while continuing
to neglect the Israeli-Palestinian problem, or allowing Sharon to devise
his own "solution". Vice-president Cheney even implied in a speech
at Davos that an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must wait on the
general establishment of democracy - a breathtaking postponement.
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- Association with such arguments is not a good idea for
those countries that have managed to maintain some distance from US policy.
Yet association is what the Bush administration wants. The quartet on the
Israeli-Palestinian question - Russia, the EU, the UN and the US - will
either be drawn into the Gaza plan or risk becoming still more irrelevant.
(The Palestinians themselves are also being drawn in, but they have little
choice.) The Americans want both Nato and the UN to have larger roles in
Iraq. Whether they can play such roles without being seen as American auxiliaries
is arguable, even if the UN has a formal pre-eminence or US troops serve
under Nato command, neither of which is in any case established.
-
- Finally, the Bush administration wants the industrialised
countries at the G8 meeting this summer to endorse its greater Middle East
initiative to foster democracy and development in the region, in which
it includes Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to bring many of their own programmes
under its umbrella.
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- The objectives of the American plan, as understood from
a version published by the Arabic newspaper al-Hayat, include free trade
zones and help for small businesses, election "assistance", more
aid for education, especially women's, more funding for women's rights,
and more ties to local groups advocating democracy. The implication is
also that the US and other countries would not only change the nature of
some aid but make existing aid, including military aid, conditional on
governments accommodating these objectives.
-
- In themselves, such purposes are more or less desirable
and not dissimilar from those of existing European programmes, both national
and EU, and of some non-governmental organisations. An interesting prospectus
for intensifying such quiet work, including the controversial idea of engaging
with Islamist civil society, was recently put forward at a conference organised
in London by the Foreign Policy Centre and a new organisation called Civility,
which believes the west does have a role to play in Middle Eastern reform.
-
- But the Americans have launched their version of this
with too much publicity and too little consultation, creating both expectations
and fears in the region, which could be obstacles to the good they might
separately achieve. The enthusiasm for European participation also undermines
what Gilles Kepel, the French scholar of Islam, called at the same conference
"the comparative advantage of Europe in the Middle East", which
"is that we are not American".
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- It is increasingly true that Arabs, in particular, used
to consider Europeans well-meaning but ineffective, but now think of them
as collaborators in American projects. Europe needs to preserve its distance.
At least making its disapproval of American policy clear in some instances
should make its qualified approval of American policy in others more influential
with Arabs who care about what Europe thinks.
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- The need to keep distance has collided, however, with
the political need to build bridges after the rift over the Iraq war. Bush
has already persuaded Chancellor Gerhard Schrder, on his recent trip to
the US, to say the right words about associating German programmes for
democracy and development in the Middle East with those of America. Britain
and other countries have also been supportive.
-
- The trouble about a fanfare democratic campaign with
US, EU and Nato bells on it, is that it is likely to be rejected on all
three levels that matter in the Middle East: by the ruling elites, by the
people at large and even by the groups and organisations working for democratic
change.
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- A quiet campaign might be another matter, but unfortunately
that does not suit the Bush administration's purposes, tied as they are
to the electoral timetable, and to its fixed opinions on Israel, Sharon
and Arafat. The administration's need to make a show of success on the
Iraqi, Israeli-Palestinian and democracy fronts, without making the necessary
painful changes of policy or doing the necessary hard work, diminishes
the chances of success on all three.
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- - m.woollacott@guardian.co.uk
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004
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- http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/comment/story/0,14259,1167836,00.html
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