Freedom on the March in the Middle East--And Transatlantic Relations on a New Course?

The view that the pathologies of socioeconomic stagnation and political instability afflicting the countries of the wider Middle East are rooted in repressive state structures has gained currency on both sides of the Atlantic.¹ So too has the view that political reform in the region is long past due and that promoting it is a worthy undertaking for America and Europe.

In the past several years, numerous political reform proposals and initiatives have originated in the region. Particularly in the past year, the Bush administration, employing a steady stream of lofty rhetoric and intense diplomacy, has sought not only to encourage political reform but to enlist Europe in working together to support these endeavors. Yet transatlantic relations were severely strained over the Iraq crisis and the attendant issues of power, the role of international institutions, and the legitimacy of the use of force.

This begs three questions that I address in this essay: Do the statements and actions by the United States and Europe, particularly since the ouster of Saddam Hussein's regime, indicate that a comprehensive transatlantic political strategy toward this region, centered on democracy promotion, is coalescing? What are the chief obstacles to the development of such a strategy? And what can be done to ensure that democracy promotion serves as a vehicle for healing rather than further damaging transatlantic relations, and for supporting rather than undermining democratic forces in the region?

The Democratic Imperative through a Transatlantic Lens

Middle East Exceptions

Democracy promotion is not a new vocation for either the United States or Europe. In the early 1990s, it derived from American and European efforts to redefine their respective roles in world affairs in a new strategic environment. However, throughout the 1990s promoting democratic principles and practices was a component, not a central organizing principle, of American and European external policies. US and European democracy support was cautious and limited. Generally, US and European concerns about stability trumped the commitment to help effect political change. Their democracy promotion efforts were selective and uneven across and within regions. The 1990s were lean years for US and European democracy promotion in the Middle East.

In the case of the United States, the focus on democracy promotion grew out of the Clinton administration's search for a successor to the Cold War strategy of containment. In a 21 September 1993 speech titled "From Containment to Enlargement," National Security Adviser Anthony Lake outlined a new conceptual framework for US foreign policy centered on strengthening the community of market democracies. Six days later, in an address to the United Nations General Assembly, President Bill Clinton clarified the new agenda: "During the Cold War we sought to contain a threat to [the] survival of free institutions. . . . Now we seek to enlarge the circle of nations that live under those free institutions."²

The Clinton administration's first National Security Strategy Report (issued in July 1994) read, "The core of our strategy is to help democracy and markets expand and survive in other places where we have the strongest security concerns and where we can make the greatest difference." Clinton officials acknowledged that there were "limited openings" for the growth and acceptance of democratic principles and a "nascent civil society" in the Middle East, and they described in general terms what the United States could do to improve the climate for political liberalization in the region.³ But attention and resources were channeled mainly to regions and countries where democratic forces were already making broad advances in the transition from communism (Eastern Europe) and military dictatorship (Latin America).

What efforts the Clinton administration did make to support political reform in the Middle East were shaped by region-specific factors. Here, three key aims guided US policy: bolstering the Oslo peace process, reducing the appeal of Islamists, and assisting Arab leaders who, in order to implement painful economic restructuring policies and quell popular unrest associated with them, had eased restrictions on political activity.⁴ And what the United States actually did with respect to the region had limited objectives...