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Should the United States increase pressure on Arab countries to democratize? No

By James Zogby
Congressional Quarterly
Posted on Thursday January 1, 2004

Given our current foreign policy in the Middle East, I do not believe the United States can, at this time, make a meaningful and positive contribution to democratic transformation in the Arab World.

Positive changes are occurring in many Arab countries, largely in response to the evolving circumstances in those countries and independent of U.S. involvement. In some instances, the United States has served as an impediment to this process: As public opinion has turned against the United States, some Arab governments have become more defensive and resistive to democratic change.

The United States lacks credibility and legitimacy when it claims to support democracy and human rights. While Arabs view U.S. values—democracy, freedom and education – positively, they view U.S. Middle East policy so negatively that overall attitudes towards the United States drop into the single digits. In other words, Arabs like our values, but do not believe that we have their best interests at heart, especially in Palestine—the central, defining issue of Arab attitudes. We are viewed as biased toward Israel and insensitive to Palestinians’ needs and rights. This harms not only our overall standing in the region, but also our friends’ standings and our ability to function as a partner in the Arab world.

For too long, we have not appreciated Arab history. The current state of affairs for the Arab people is the culmination of more than 100 years of a loss of control. During the past century, some Arab areas were colonized by the West; others were victims of imperial powers that occupied the region, created states out of whole cloth and implanted regimes.

The neo-conservative “idealism” that sees us establishing democracy in this region is, at best, counterproductive, and, at worst, damaging. Our unilateral occupation of Iraq and our behavior vis-à-vis the Palestinians has us viewed today as a continuation of the Western machinations of the last century. If we fail to understand this, we put ourselves at great risk.

If the United States were to do an about-face on Palestine—for example, by directly and dramatically challenging Israeli expansion on the West Bank—our relationship with the region would improve dramatically. It would significantly contribute to our peacemaking ability, as well as our ability to play a more constructive role as an agent for change in the region.