- The Bush administration is crowing about what it claims
is "a wave of democracy and freedom" sweeping the Middle East.
And it's all thanks to the invasion of Iraq, insists the White House, offering
the umpteenth new rationale for going to war.
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- Just look: Iraq held an election of sorts under U.S.
"guidance." Egypt's long-time ruler, Gen. Hosni Mubarak, says
he will allow multi-party elections. Tunisia and Saudi Arabia recently
held elections. Lebanon, rent by pro- and anti-Syrian protests, may soon
hold new elections.
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- All this does look like the dawn of Arab democracy --
to those who don't know much about the region. Up close, the picture is
less rosy.
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- Ironically, the man most responsible for pushing the
Arab world towards political change is not George W. Bush, but his nemesis,
Osama bin Laden.
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- Overthrow
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- For over a decade, bin Laden has agitated for the overthrow
of the corrupt, despotic Arab regimes supported by the U.S., and their
replacement by a traditional Islamic democratic consensus.
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- As bin Laden's anti-American insurgency gathers strength
and resonates among the restive Arab masses, the Bush administration has
urged the frightened kings and generals running Washington's client Arab
regimes to make a show of democratic reforms to head off popular uprisings.
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- Most of these reforms are pure sham. Washington stage-managed
Iraq's vote to empower Shia and Kurdish yes-men who will pretend to rule
while the U.S. continues to run Iraq and pump its oil. Mubarak, the U.S.-backed
military ruler of Egypt, is apparently grooming his son to take over under
cover of rigged "open, multi-party" elections.
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- In October, Tunisia's U.S.-backed military dictator won
"re-election" by a Soviet-style 94.5%. Saudi Arabia's recent
vote was an empty exercise.
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- Lebanon's noisy anti-Syrian demonstrations, which Bush
hailed a "democratic revolution," were staged by a minority of
its citizens -- mostly anti-Syrian Maronite Christians and Druze.
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- Lebanon's largest ethnic group, Shia, strongly back both
Syria's presence and Hezbollah, Lebanon's most popular political party.
Mounting U.S. involvement in Lebanon risks re-igniting that nation's bloody,
15-year civil war.
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- The Arab world desperately needs democracy, rule of law,
free speech and honest government. Ironically, even Israel's Arabs, though
second-class citizens, enjoy more human and political rights than in many
Arab states.
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- But most Arabs see Bush's "freedom" crusade
as a cynical campaign to tighten U.S. control of the Mideast by ditching
old-fashioned generals and monarchs for more modern, democratic-looking
civilian regimes that still do Washington's bidding.
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- The Arab world's only truly free election was held in
1991 by Algeria's U.S.- and French-supported military regime. Islamic parties
won a landslide. The military annulled the vote and jailed Islamist leaders
-- backed by Washington and Paris.
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- It's likely any honest votes held in feudal Jordan, Morocco,
Saudi Arabia, or military-run Egypt, Libya, and Syria, would produce similar
results.
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- Most Arab states lack political legitimacy. Soldiers
and ferocious secret police keep their repressive regimes in power. Once
U.S. support for these oligarchies wavers, as is happening now, opposition
swells up.
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- After Washington began voicing doubts in 1979 about the
old U.S. ally, the Shah of Iran, revolution ensued. The same process is
now under way in Saudi Arabia.
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- The Bush administration is right. Arabs need democracy.
But it is behaving like a bull in the Mideast china shop and is following
contradictory policies. Bush wants more popular, less dictatorial regimes,
but only those catering to U.S. strategic interests.
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- Dangerous muddle
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- All this ham-handed U.S. political engineering may produce
a dangerous muddle or even provoke collapse of pro-U.S. despots and their
replacement by anti-U.S. revolutionary forces.
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- If Bush really wants real Mideast democracy, he should
begin with Egypt, which contains a third of all Arabs, and is essentially
a U.S. protectorate. End its military dictatorship, allow real political
parties, a free press, and honest elections. Do not allow Egypt to get
away with more sham elections. Set a sterling example for the democracy-deficient
Muslim world.
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- The problem, unfortunately, is that the Arab world's
most popular political figure is very likely bin Laden.
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- Copyright © 2005, Canoe Inc.All rights reserved.
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- http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/
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