Democracy is a Good Thing, Right?

Isn't democracy great? Back in the good old days, the United States didn't really care about supporting democracy around the world. We cared about what we perceived as our strategic interests, like winning the Cold War and guaranteeing a steady flow of oil to our country. So we regularly propped up brutal dictators like Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the Shah of Iran and the Saudi royal family, and we took down democratically elected leaders like Allende in Chile who leaned to far to the left for our tastes.

But the times they are a changing. The Cold War is over and democracy has broken out in Russia and in most of its former satellite states. In some countries, like Russia the Ukraine, it seems to be not going very well; but in in others like Poland and Czechoslovakia it is flourishing. All in all the spread of democracy in this part of the world has been a plus for us and for the world.

But in the Middle East it is a different story. Palestine just had free and fair elections and it brought Hamas to power, radically Islamisist and vowing to overthrow Israel. In Iraq, a new democratically elected government is apparently going to be installed that is more friendly to Iran than its "liberators." Egypt is experimenting with democracy and the results are frightening both us and Egypt's goverment; radical Islamic parties are winning local elections and would easily win a national election. The same thing would happen in Saudi Arabia.

Do we really want to support the spread of democracy in the Middle East? In a commentary piece in today's Washington Post, Shibley Tehlami of the Brookings Institution talks about the risks of democracy in the Middle East and our goverment's approach there. The University of Maryland professor says the United States has been extremely naive to underestimate the strength of radical Islamic sentiment:

In Arab politics there are primarily two organized power groups: Islamic organizations, drawing their support from a disenfranchised public mobilized by the mosque, and governing elites. Sure, there are many other organizations, sometimes even ones whose aspirations match those of large segments of the public, but their chances will remain small. This we have ascribed to bad governments always forcing the choice between themselves on the one hand and the Islamists on the other.

...

It isn't that democracy is not possible in the Arab world. In fact, the remarkable thing about the Palestinian elections was that they were free and highly contested under difficult circumstances. Over 20 percent of the candidates, including those of Hamas, were female. The ruling elites accepted defeat and stepped aside. In the limited parliamentary success in Egypt, government candidates lost in a majority of the districts contested by the candidates of the Muslim Brotherhood -- and the results stood.

But in this historic moment Islamists remain the most well-organized alternative to governments, a situation that is unlikely to change soon. And current governments are not popular: A survey I conducted in October with Zogby International (in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Jordan, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates) asked Arabs which world leaders they admired most (outside their own countries). The only leader who received double-digit support was French President Jacques Chirac (for his perceived defiance of the United States on Iraq). No sitting Arab ruler received more than 2 percent. A plurality of Arabs believe that the clergy plays "too little" a role in Arab politics. There is a vacuum of leadership that will inevitably cost governments in truly free elections.

This leaves U.S. foreign policy with limited choices. Full electoral democracy in the Middle East will inevitably lead to domination by Islamist groups, leaving the United States to either continue a confrontational approach, with high and dangerous costs for both sides, or to find a way to engage them -- something that has yet to be fully considered. Given this, skepticism about the real aims of these groups should be balanced by openness to the possibility that their aims once they are in power could differ from their aims as opposition groups. This requires partial engagement, patience, and a willingness to allow such new governments space and time to put their goals to the test of reality. Hamas, in fact, could provide a place for testing whether careful engagement leads to moderation.

I agree. While we have every right to expect Hamas to accept a two-state solution with Israel and disavow support of terrorism, they should be given time to experience the reality of being a governing power and having to deliver promises to their people and having to deal with their more powerful neighboring states. I think it would be a mistake to immediately cut off all aid to their goverment. Even if political considerations force us to do it in the United States, we should allow and implicitly encourage other governments to support Hamas for a time. We should constructively engage them and encourage them to bring Palestine peacefully into the family of nations. We need them to succeed.

It is in our long term interests to support democracy in the Middle East, even though it is going to be very dangerous in the short term. Our past support of brutal sectarian dictators in the Middle East has contributed to the rise of a radical brand of Islam. (It is not our fault, though; the opposition could have chosen peaceful Islamic resistance.) We are not trusted, and rightly so. But if we truly encourage the flowering of democracy and creatively engage the new governments in Palestine, Iraq, and those that are going to arise elsewhere, there is no reason to expect that they will not eventually moderate their positions and open their countries to all the benefits of trade and peaceful diplomacy. And if we don't believe this is possible, what have we been doing in China for the last 30 years?