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The Spectacle Blog
James Antle and John Tabin both make important points about democratization in Egypt and the Middle East. Antle rightly notes that “creating democracy where it has never existed before is extremely difficult and requires a great deal more than just free elections.”
That, in fact, is precisely the point I made in an AmSpec blog entry on Saturday. Democratization, I wrote, is a long and developing process which includes an entire “infrastructure of institutions, customs, laws and societal arrangements that allow democracy to work and to flourish.”
But as Tabin rightly points out, ever since Ronald Reagan was elected president, the world has changed dramatically and generally in a more democratic direction. This is in large measure attributable to a concerted change in U.S. foreign policy, initiated by Reagan and championed (with varying degrees of effectiveness and vigor) by George W. Bush.
The policy change initiated by Reagan involved putting the United States squarely on the side of freedom and democracy worldwide. And the result, as Tabin, observes, has been a dramatic sea change in governance, with 59 percent of countries now at least somewhat democratic, according to Freedom House.
In 1979, by contrast, as Jeanne Kirpatrick observed, “most governments in the world [were], as they [had] always been, autocracies of one kind or another.”
Now, Antle is right to note that the liberal democratic wave has yet to really hit the Middle East and sub-Saharan North Africa. That’s true, though we shouldn’t give short shrift to the Iraqi people. The Iraqis, after all, have repeatedly and heroically demonstrated their commitment to democracy, even in the face of vicious and intimidating violence by a relative handful of Islamists.
In any case, the lack of a democratic tradition in the Middle East is precisely what makes the uprising in Egypt so remarkable and so promising — and, therefore, so worthy of active and vigorous American support.
Here you have a widespread national rebellion against Mubarak’s 30-year autocracy. And this in a place, Egypt, where none of the so-called experts seem ever to have envisioned liberal democracy taking hold.
And the protesters are not Islamists, radicals or pan-Arabists; they are Egyptians, many of them young people, who want nothing more than a better life and a more responsive government. The fact is that Egyptian civil society is a lot more advanced than Antle and other so-called foreign policy realists seem to realize or wish to acknowledge.
Caution and skepticism, of course, are always warranted. Revolutions are inherently risky. But that is precisely why it is incumbent upon the United States to exercise leadership: to help avert a nightmare scenario. Yet the man who campaigned on “hope and change” has said very little about promoting real hope and change where it is most urgently needed: in the heart of the Middle East.
The point is not to “pick winners and losers,” as Antle suggests; it is to help create a political environment within Egypt in which the Egyptian people themselves can pick winners and losers.
And the point is not to have free and fair elections once; it is to create a dynamic within Egypt that will leader to greater democratization and development over time.
It is true that, in the short run, democratization in the Middle East might empower radical elements who threaten Israel and the United States. This is a real risk, but one that we must accept and sanction — just as we did in Italy and France after World War II.
In the mid-to-late 1940s, you will recall, the communist parties in Italy and France commanded significant popular support and thus were allowed to compete in free and fair elections. Electoral competition served to expose and isolate the communists as the extremists that they were. And so, democratization in both Italy and France continued apace in spite of the communists.
In the same way, radical elements might attract popular support in Egypt and the Middle East. But the way to minimize their influence is twofold: First, ensure that the democratic political infrastructure is in place to hold rulers and legislators accountable to the people whom they govern.
The radicals espouse political and economic policies that cannot work. So long as they are held accountable (in free and fair elections) for their policy failures, we can be sure that their influence will wane over time.
Second, the United States and Israel must remain strong and assertive, both militarily and diplomatically. There’s a reason, after all, that Egypt hasn’t gone to war against Israel since 1973; and that reason ain’t the Camp David Peace Accords. It is, instead, that Egypt recognizes that a war against Israel would be suicidal.
Israel, aided and abetted by the United States, must continue to make the cost of war prohibitive to any and all aggressors. And the United States must work to isolate the radicals — politically, diplomatically and economically — so that their attraction and allure to people throughout the Middle East steadily wanes over time.
Indeed, as the late great Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis explained, “sunshine is the best disinfectant.” Force the radicals to espouse workable public policies, and even to govern, and watch them fade into the ash heap of history. Or side with the autocrats and watch the radicals grow in unwarranted stature and influence throughout Egypt and the Middle East. That’s the choice that now confronts us.
Still, we shouldn’t overstate the Islamist threat in Egypt, as many American conservatives have done and, regrettably, continue to do. Everything that we’ve seen thus far demonstrates conclusively that the protesters are ordinary Egyptians with legitimate and democratic aspirations.
And the United States of America — a country founded on the proposition that “all men are created equal; [and] that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights… among [which] are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” — cannot and must not remain neutral in the great and eternal struggle between liberty and tyranny.
We must choose sides; and we must choose liberty: because liberty is precisely what America and Americans are all about.
View all comments (21) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by John R. Guardiano
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/01/31/in-egypt-and-elsewhere-america
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Red Phillips | 1.31.11 @ 11:41PM
"ever since Ronald Reagan was elected president, the world has changed dramatically and generally in a more democratic direction. This is in large measure attributable to a concerted change in U.S. foreign policy, initiated by Reagan and championed (with varying degrees of effectiveness and vigor) by George W. Bush."
What? This is an astoundingly Messianic statement. "In large measure attributable?" How do you possibly claim to know that? Like all complex phenomenon "democratization" has complex and innumerable "causes."
To cite "democracy" in Iraq, which is the consequence of our massive invasion and continued presence, as evidence of your theory is asinine. If democracy has such a foothold in Iraq, why can't we leave? Why can't we leave Afghanistan now since they have an "elected" leader? The same people talking up democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan are the same ones who would be yelling "surrender" at the suggestion we pack up and leave.
Good grief! The neocon delusion knows no bounds.
Clint| 2.1.11 @ 1:01AM
" Was Reagan the first neoconservative?
This claim has been entered in the wake of his death. Yet, it seems bogus, a patent forgery, a fabricated claim to the Reagan legacy......"
"Where the neocons are implacable enemies of the Saudi monarchy, Reagan sold the Saudis AWACS and F-16s. Where the neocons are fearful of the outcome of our clash with radical Islam, Reagan was serenely self-confident of the outcome of our clash with communism. Where they are bellicose and compulsive interventionists, Reagan was cautious. "
Chris| 2.1.11 @ 7:37AM
Yeah, we are in Iraq and Afghanistan and both have clauses in their constitutions that Islam is the supreme law. I'm sure things will go much better in Egypt.
Jonathan Crumly| 1.31.11 @ 11:58PM
Excellent thesis. Well thought out, even soaring at points, analysis of the benefits of supporting freedom throughout the world. Unfortunately, it ignores the realities of Egypt and the Middle East. Iraq is the exception that proves the rule. It also did not and does not have the systemic influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and its anti-liberty teachings. To the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliated entities, "liberty" is not what we Westerners think it is. "Liberty" to the driving forces behind these riots equates to either Marxist statism or Islamic hegemony of state and religion to the exclusion of any non-Islamic thought. This is not the Cedar Revolution or the new structure of Western liberty imposed on Iraq by our courageous military. This is much more akin to the Gaza Strip and Hamas controlled Lebanon. The Muslim Brotherhood is behind these riots and that cannot lead to anywhere good for liberty. To ignore the history of how Nasser, Sadat & Mubarak dealt with the Muslim Brotherhood is pollyannaish at best. The teachings of the Koran as espoused by these folks commands the absolute merger of church and state. It calls for the annihilation of all those in dar al-harb (i.e. every one of us who do not live in an Islamic state).
I hope and pray you are right and I am wrong. Unfortunately, what I see in Egypt and what recent and more distant history teaches about folks like the Muslim Brotherhood is that they are at war with the kind of liberty espoused in the Declaration of Independence. They have been at war since the days of President Jefferson when he finally unleashed the Leather Necks on their ancestors.
PCC| 2.1.11 @ 12:21AM
Mr. Guardino, you are 100% correct.
1. Mr. Mubarak is the head of a corrupt and repressive regime that has no chance whatsoever of surviving the people's uprising in Egypt. He is already history; it seems only the U.S. government and Mr. Mubarak himself don't know this.
2. The uprising is a broad-based secular movement yearning for basic civic freedoms and is entirely justified in rejecting Mubarak's dictatorship.
3. The U.S. should get on board with the protesters right away. Their values are our values.
4. The risk of an Islamist-based regime is small, though admittedly not non-existent. The Egyptians are very unlikely to go down that route.
5. In the long run, both Israel's and the U.S.' security and strategic interests will be better served by a democratic Egypt than an authoritarian one.
6. The whole of the Middle East is on the precipice of a democratic revolution. The U.S. should be at the forefront on this incredibly positive development and we should be supporting the forces of democratic change with everything we've got!
tatosian| 2.1.11 @ 8:56AM
Their values are our values."
Not really.
I was raised a Christian but the US Constitution prevented the state from reinforcing a religious doctrine on us like Egypt's constitution demands adherence to Islam:
Article 2:
Islam is the religion of the state and Arabic its official language.
Islamic jurisprudence is the principal source of legislation.
Surely that article has meaning. Surely that article reinforces Islamic law just as vigorously as our second amendment protects us against state enforced religious doctrine.
Words have meaning and laws have consequences.
Forgive me for making the connection here but one of those consequences is the number of murdered religious minorities that so frequently occur in states practicing Islamic based jurisprudence. Like Egypt, Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Another consequence is the constitutionally assured absence of religious persecution in my country.
That this particular persecution goes mostly unmentioned by pundits and foreign policy guys is curious.
I mean, why does that persecution exist in the middle east but not here?
That said...
I'm told I should support this glorious rebellion in Egypt because it represents the Egyptian people's demands for liberty and freedom (while preserving their right to persecute religious minorities?). That Islam has very little, if anything to do with said rebellion. And even if Islam did play a roll, it would probably have no more than a small part in some ad hoc coalition government. Committed to democracy. Because in a nation where 90% of the population adheres to the state religion even the Muslim Brotherhood can't dampen the Egyptian people's ardor for Democracy.
Will Egypt shake off the Islamic state and become a place where, as Guadiano is wont to exhort, "all men are created equal; [and] that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights... among [which] are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"?
I ask again, what democracy dependent on Islam doesn't commit slow motion ethnic cleansing against it's religious minorities? Or more appropriately stated, where does Islamic jurisprudence prevent the vilification of the dreaded and reviled "other"?
And don't bother mentioning turkey, a nation suffering the slow creep of sharia, because it too engages in the Islamic sport of religious persecution. (see this for example- Murder in Anatolia - Christian missionaries and Turkish ultranationalism- http://www.todayszaman.com/new.....alism.html )
You have not and will not see a democracy where all individuals have equal rights and liberties while Islamic jurisprudence holds sway. You know this yet you insist it is not so.
Why?
I'm curious: What is it precisely that this democratization process holds for you? Do you suppose a new Egypt will turn its back on Islam, celebrate it's diversity and transform itself into a multicultural paradise like us? Do you suppose our support of Egypt's democratization will discourage the jihadis already here? Or anywhere else? And if it discourages even one, well then, all those billions of democratization dollars were worth it?
I admit, I don't understand it.
Red Phillips | 2.1.11 @ 1:34PM
"The uprising is a broad-based secular movement"
How do you possibly claim to know that? Cite your sources and the latest Kristol, Boot, Krauthammer, etc. column doesn't count.
"The risk of an Islamist-based regime is small, though admittedly not non-existent. The Egyptians are very unlikely to go down that route."
Again, how do you possibly claim to know that? Cite your sources please.
Neoconservatism is foreign policy by a combination of belligerence because Muslims (the Iranians for example) are irredeemable and naive wishful thinking. So which is it? Muslims hate us because of our freedoms and are an intolerable threat that must be dealt with preemptively, or they are all yearning to be free? Neocons seem to just create whatever story it is that will justify their meddling.
PCC| 2.1.11 @ 7:45PM
"Neoconservatism is foreign policy by a combination of belligerence because Muslims (the Iranians for example) are irredeemable and naive wishful thinking."
Cite your sources, please.
Red Phillips | 2.1.11 @ 11:23PM
Nice dodge PCC.
PCC| 2.2.11 @ 6:56AM
One good dodge deserves another, pal. It's called an opinion. We'll see who's right.
Red Phillips | 2.2.11 @ 11:21PM
Saying "The uprising is a broad-based secular movement" is not an opinion except to the degree we could argue about what qualifies as broad-based or secular. It is a statement that is either factual or it is not. On what evidence do you make it?
PCC| 2.3.11 @ 12:58AM
Dear Mr. Phillips,
It is my opinion, based on listening to dozens of radio interviews of participants in the Egyptian protests (none of them from the hopelessly out-of-touch U.S. media), that the protesters are motivated primarily by a desire to reclaim their civic rights. Not one of them said, or even implied, "The Prophet made me do it"!
PCC| 2.1.11 @ 12:32AM
By the way, where's Mr. Obama's Paul Laxalt?
"Mr. Mubarak, you should cut and cut cleanly."
cali| 2.1.11 @ 5:05AM
American leadership appears to be absent in this case; but betting on the wrong horse.
the Muslim Brotherhood, and Elbaradei is not the answer in Eqypt.
However this plays out, it is detrimental to our ally Israel, and they don't need a Muslim Brotherhood next door.
'Man made disaster' applies here!
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.1.11 @ 6:27AM
Mr. Guardiano,
Thank you for those thoughts. I must say I am very skeptical of the outcome with the Mulims in the majority in Egypt.
"Sharia" is based entirely upon "submission"
I'm betting the Christians there have stayed at home and kept their mouths shut.
Sir, this upheaval isn't taking place in a time warp.
(frozen time)
People are getting hungrier every single day there.
Desperation is very close in time. God only knows where this will end, but I am suggesting that the stage has been set for a massive die-off.
FREE tea| 2.1.11 @ 7:53AM
----"The U.S. has one final task before it too is completely collapsed and the Globalists bring RED China in for 'eugenics
realism' ---and that task is the standardization,
cultural neutralization etc. of the Middle East."
-Alan Watt
Cutting Through the Matrix
(online)
And just now learning that Mubarak, though certainly a set-up and tyrant, did, IN FACT,
fiercely reject their programs for MASS sterilization, weaponized vaccines and abortion.
On top of which the figures 'mysteriously emerging' from the 'chaos' to lead the opposition all appear to be UN and Soros men...
Robert Pinkerton| 2.1.11 @ 8:06AM
I have a bad feeling about this. Worst-case outcome is another outright Islamic state, and this seems to me to be all too probable.
martin j smith| 2.1.11 @ 8:19AM
In some vague way the Revolution in Egypt has a vague ,very vague connection to the Tea Party Revolution--which is why Obama must be cautious ,
But the difference is this--Obama sees the Tea Party as an Obstacle to his PERSONAL AGGRANDIZEMENT. WHEREAS THE DEMONSTRATORS IN EGYPT WANT MUBARAK OUT BUT WHAT THEY REALLY WANT DEPENDS ON WHO COMES OUT ON TOP.. What Obama should do is to call for a stable Democratic transition from Mubarak to a more popular and More DEMOCRATIC AND LESS AUTHORITARIAN SYSTEM. The idea of listening to the needs of the people. Sort of like what Obama does not do with those who disagree with him--Like the Tea Party Movement. . Obama is really an autocrat5i--a dictator being foiled by our own system. He cannot fathom support for Democracy in Egypt any more than he can do so here. It will be necessary at some point to seriously consider IMPEACHMENT because Obama will ignore the Law and it will be put up or shut up time in the US of A.
Dai Alanye | 2.1.11 @ 11:42AM
There is only one question of importance at this time: what is the Obama administration doing to bring about a favorable resolution to the Egyptian crisis?
By favorable I mean a bringing about a government acceptable to the Egyptian people and also acceptable to us. Doesn't need to be democratic, doesn't need to be especially friendly to either the US or Israel, doesn't even need to be secular. It only needs to be non-aggressive internationally and willing to pursue a rational internal economic program.
It also doesn't matter what happens to our long-time buddy, quasi-benign dictator Mubarek, because he counts for nothing compared to the hitherto foiled aspirations of eighty million people.
Unfortunately, the previous actions of Barry the Dilettante make it doubtful that any preparation for this event is in the works, nor that wise and firm decisions will be made. The best we can hope for is that Obama, Hillary, Daley and whoever else might be calling the shots doesn't make things too much worse than they already are.
kingsmill| 2.1.11 @ 11:52AM
I don't buy into the "end of history" thesis-eg. that some form of universal democracy and equality will reign supreme. It's a neocon spin off absorbed from their Straussian and Kojevian mentors in the academy That's where it needs to stay.
Conservatives must internalize the words of John Quincy Adams:
"Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet on her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world; she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit. . . . Her glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice. "
Pete| 2.1.11 @ 2:11PM
It is not the job of the U.S. president to bring democracy to the world.
Suggest it, yes, but don't waste American blood and treasure on a fool's errant like that in the Middle East.
Rather, the U.S. president's job is to assure the Arabs (and others) that we will break their backs if and when they pose a danger to us --- something like walk softly but carry a big stick for the 21st Century.