The Right Way to Promote Arab Reform

Abstract

SINCE TAKING office four years ago, President George W. Bush has often spoken ofthe need for political reform in the Arab world. Ordinary Arabs, however, have had good reason to be skeptical of his much discussed forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. After all, their region has been mired in political stasis for years, thanks in part to U.S. support for many ofthe Middle East's dictators. For most of the last five decades, Washington has done little to promote Arab democratiza tion, relying instead on the autocratic leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other countries to help protect vital U.S. interests in the neighborhood. This skepticism, however, may no longer be warranted. On the morning of September 1i, 2001, U.S. priorities in the Middle East changed. Suddenly, the Bush administration came to see democrati zation, which it had previously ranked below security and stability in its list of concerns for the Arab world, as the critical means by which to achieve these other goals. Indeed, the toppling of the World Trade Center and the attack on the Pentagon fundamentally shifted the underlying assumption of U.S. Middle East policy. Arab authoritari anism could no longer be viewed as a source of stability; instead, it was the primary threat to it. To drain the swamp that had incubated Islamist radicals such as Osama bin Laden, it became critical to promote political liberalization, even democratization, in the Middle East, and this goal became a central feature of U.S. national security policy.