Are you interested in what an Egyptian democracy activist and professor of political sociology at the American University in Cairo has to say about the New emerging Middle East? Read Saad Eddin Ibrahim in Washington Post. Here are snippets from there:
President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may be quite right about a new Middle East being born. [But] it will not be exactly the baby they have longed for. [It] will be neither secular nor friendly to the United States.
The law of unintended consequences is very strong for violent meassures – as if no one had guessed that.
What is happening in the broader Middle East and North Africa can be seen as a boomerang effect that has been playing out slowly since the horrific events of Sept. 11, 2001. In the immediate aftermath of those attacks, there was worldwide sympathy for the United States and support for its declared “war on terrorism,” including the invasion of Afghanistan. Then the cynical exploitation of this universal goodwill by so-called neoconservatives to advance hegemonic designs was confirmed by the war in Iraq. The Bush administration’s dishonest statements about “weapons of mass destruction” diminished whatever credibility the United States might have had as liberator, while disastrous mismanagement of Iraqi affairs after the invasion led to the squandering of a conventional military victory. The country slid into bloody sectarian violence, while official Washington stonewalled and refused to admit mistakes. No wonder the world has progressively turned against America.
Some part of the world saw it all along that Bush is dishonest and cynical. At last, it is not “against us” to want to stop him.
Through much of 2005 it looked as if the Middle East might finally have its long-overdue spring of freedom. Lebanon forged a Cedar Revolution. [Egypt] held its first multi-candidate presidential election in 50 years. So did Palestine and Iraq, despite harsh conditions of occupation. Qatar and Bahrain [continued] their steady evolution into constitutional monarchies. Even Saudi Arabia held its first municipal elections.
But there was more. Hamas mobilized candidates and popular campaigns to win a plurality in Palestinian legislative elections and form a new government. Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt achieved similar electoral successes.
[Instead] of welcoming these particular elected officials into the newly emerging democratic fold, Washington began a cold war on Muslim democrats. Even the tepid pressure on autocratic allies of the United States to democratize in 2005 had all but disappeared by 2006.
Bush cannot accept democrasy when people decide otherwise than he wishes.
Now the cold war on Islamists has escalated into a shooting war, first against Hamas in Gaza and then against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel is perceived in the region, rightly or wrongly, to be an agent acting on behalf of U.S. interests. [Destroying] Lebanon with an overkill approach born of a desire for vengeance cannot be morally tolerated or politically justified — and it will not work.
[It] is too early to predict whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will survive Qana II and the recent war. But Hezbollah will survive, just as it has already outlasted five Israeli prime ministers and three American presidents.
Born in the thick of an earlier Israeli invasion, in 1982, Hezbollah is at once a resistance movement against foreign occupation, a social service provider for the needy of the rural south and the slum-dwellers of Beirut, and a model actor in Lebanese and Middle Eastern politics.
Hezbollah is a smarter factor than Washington would admit. What are other effective models to fight neo-conservative follies?
According to the preliminary results of a recent public opinion survey [in Egypt], Hezbollah’s action garnered 75% approval, and Nasrallah led a list of 30 regional public figures ranked by perceived importance. He appears on 82% of responses, followed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (73%), Khaled Meshal of Hamas (60%), Osama bin Laden (52%) and Mohammed Mahdi Akef of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (45%).
The pattern here is clear, and it is Islamic. [Among] the few secular public figures who made it into the top 10 are Palestinian Marwan Barghouti (31%) and Egypt’s Ayman Nour (29%), both of whom are prisoners of conscience in Israeli and Egyptian jails, respectively.
None of the current heads of Arab states made the list of the 10 most popular public figures. [These] Egyptian findings suggest the direction in which the region is moving. The Arab people do not respect the ruling regimes, perceiving them to be autocratic, corrupt and inept. They are, at best, ambivalent about the fanatical Islamists of the bin Laden variety. More mainstream Islamists [are] the most likely actors in building a new Middle East.
[These] groups, parties and movements are not inimical to democracy. They have accepted electoral systems and practiced electoral politics, probably too well for Washington’s taste. Whether we like it or not, these are the facts. The rest of the Western world must come to grips with the new [reality].
Surprising winners and loosers?!
[Crossposted at European Tribune and Daily Kos]
