It’s kind of understandable that conservatives are remembering that George W. Bush talked about a democracy agenda for the Middle East, are seeing a movement towards democracy in Tunisia and Egypt, and are drawing the conclusion that Bush is responsible for the present crises in the Arab world. Of course, this is supposed to be a good thing.
It should be remembered that the elections that took place during the Bush era were not exactly successful. The elections in Iraq brought to power a bloc of pro-Iranian, religiously conservative Shi’ites, much to the alarm of the rest of the Sunni-dominated Arab world. The Sunnis in Iraq initially boycotted the elections, making the problem even worse and leading to massive ethnic cleansing with dozens of headless bodies littering the streets of Baghdad each morning.
Elections in Lebanon led to increased power for Hizbollah and, ultimately, a destabilization of the central government. Within a year, Israel would invade Lebanon and essentially lose in their battle to disarm Hizbollah. This was hardly the outcome the neo-cons were looking for.
In Palestine, the elections were won by Hamas. When Israel refused to accept such an outcome and began arresting Palestine’s newly-elected officials, the U.S. went along with them. Within a year, Hamas took over the Gaza Strip and threw Fatah officials out. Then we witnessed the Battle of Gaza. Hamas remains in control of Gaza today.
The elections in Egypt and Afghanistan were rigged. The municipal elections in Saudi Arabia didn’t amount to much.
The one thing we can say is that the Middle East is experiencing a lot more democracy than ever before. We may not have liked the outcome, but Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine did have relatively fair elections. Maybe Tunisia and Egypt will soon be able to say the same thing. I don’t think Bush deserves much credit for this, except, perhaps, in an unintentional and ironic way. But I never opposed or disagreed with Bush when he said that the Middle East needs more democracy. I just thought he was a fool for thinking it would lead to any short-term advantage for Israel or the United States.
All the advantages are in the longer-term, and they depend on us doing a true pivot and becoming very supportive of these new democracies. There is no reason why we can’t be even better friends with a democratic Egypt than we are with an autocratic one. But we are going to have to adjust. The Egyptian electorate is going to have a lot of disagreements with us on long-standing foreign policies.
