The Battle for Arab Hearts and Minds: Shifting U.S. Policy?

December 12, 2002

by Robert Nolan

American officials have indicated a significant shift in Middle East policy over the past week that they hope will pave the way for a war with Iraq and, ultimately, bring democracy to the Arab world. Speeches delivered this week by Ambassador Richard Haass, who heads the U.S. Department of State's policy planning department, CIA director George Tenant and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell reveal the beginnings of a concerted effort by the Bush administration to win the hearts and minds of Arabs through the implementation of democratic principles. The shift -- what Haass has referred to as addressing the “democratic deficit” -- comes at a time when Powell and the so-called Middle East quartet prepare to resurrect the peace process in a diplomatic front currently overshadowed by weapons inspections and the threat of war in Iraq.

A Bold Task Begun

The recent remarks from American officials represent a collective response to the Arab Human Development Report, a joint project undertaken by the United Nations Development Program and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development. According to Haass, the report claims that youth unemployment throughout the region has reached nearly 40 percent, compounding the harsh economic realities of an Arab world in which 70 percent of the population is less than 25-years-old.

While Haass said that Arabs should not blame the United States for a lack of democracy in the region, he acknowledged an American failure to help “foster gradual paths to democratization” in countries that are often considered allies. “By creating what might be called a “democratic defecit” – we missed an opportunity to help these countries become more stable, more prosperous, more peaceful, and more adaptable to the stresses of a globalizing world,” he said in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations. “It is not in the U.S. interest – or that of Muslims – for America to continue this exception. U.S. policy will be engaged in supporting democratic trends in the Muslim world more than ever.”

Such efforts will largely be made under the umbrella of the Middle East Partnership Initiative, a State Department program that has been under construction for the past several months. “The initiative will provide funding and a framework for the United States to work together with governments and people in the Arab world to expand economic, educational and political opportunity,” the State Department said this week, according to Al Haaretz. “The initiative will also serve as a forum for the United States and governments and the people of the Middle East to strengthen cultural and economic ties.”

While State Department officials will ask for an increase in the program's $25 million budget, many have expressed concern that the project will only further muddle what some see as inconsistent policy towards the region. “Mr. Powell's message risks being confused by the simultaneous U.S. efforts to strengthen ties with some of the region's repressive regimes,” said a report from the Financial Times.

CIA Director George Tenet said such efforts were part of a “strategic imperative” to support democracy and reform in Muslim nations, according to the Hindustan Times. He also said that the U.S. must deal with “the circumstances that nurture terror by supporting education and social services and enlarging opportunities for people in the Muslim world.”

Critics Cry Foul

The initiative has been met with skeptic criticism from those who view it as a thinly disguised plot to maintain U.S. interests in the region. “The United States often is accused by people across the Middle East – both its leaders and the regular folk – of not following a cohesive or consistent foreign policy where they are concerned, and instead, changing its heart and mind to suit its immediate interests,” writes Claude Salhani of United Press International. “These interests usually translate into one major concern: unhindered access to inexpensive oil.”

Others point to what they see as a genuine disinterest in seeing democracy flourish in the region. “Nobody can doubt that the United States of America has a military presence of imperial and hegemonic dimensions in the Arab world,” writes Col. Brian Cloughley in Pakistan's Daily Times. “Is it there for purposes of encouraging Mr. Bush's desire for ‘freedom and the development of democratic institutions? Fat chance. He uses these nations for two purposes: to ensure oil supplies at an agreeable price to U.S. voters, and to prepare his war on Iraq.”

Despite such criticism, U.S. officials continue to look for ways to integrate the Arab world into strategic American goals in the Middle East, and they are doing so in an increasingly unapologetic manner. “There is no hidden agenda,” said Haass. “America's rationale in promoting democratization in the Muslim world is both altruistic and self-interested. Greater democracy in Muslim majority countries is good for the people who live there, but it is also good for America.”

Such efforts on the part of the U.S must also be met with gestures-in-kind from the Islamic world, according to Salhani. “If the United States needs to become more responsive to the Arab and Islamic world's sensitivities, then so does the Arab world need to address and correct a number of burning issues that if left unattended will only nurture and eventually come back to haunt them.” Finding a way out of the current status quo, in which anti-Americanism often fuels autocratic regimes, is a challenge both parties continue to face.

An Exercise in Futility?

Some skeptics suggest that efforts to democratize the Arab world are futile. “In the name of promoting democracy in the Arab world, we would have to do things that would be looked at as rather nasty and would not be appreciated by the population we are supposedly trying to help,” writes Dimitri Simes, president of the Nixon Center, in the Washington Times. “In the end, we may find ourselves on the receiving end of those things that we want to avoid by taking out Saddam Hussein.”

Barry Rubin, writing in this month's edition of Foreign Affairs, claims that the intentions of initiatives such as those being discussed by the State Department actually undermine American interests in the region. “U.S. policymakers should understand that various public relations efforts, apologies acts of appeasement, or policy shifts will not by themselves do away with anti-Americanism,” Rubin writes. “Only when the systems that manufacture and encourage anti-Americanism fail will popular opinion also change. In the interim, the most Washington can do is show the world that the United States is steadfast in support of its interests and its allies.”

It is this approach that will most likely continue to dominate U.S. policy towards the region. The State Department has been careful to include language that allows it to implement whatever actions it deems necessary, from Iraq to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “America will support democratic processes even if those empowered do not choose policies to our liking,” said Haass, expanding on a policy of “integration” he outlined at the Foreign Policy Association earlier this year. “U.S. relations with governments, even if fairly elected will depend on how they treat their people and how they act on the international stage on issues ranging from terrorism to trade and from nonproliferation to narcotics.”