Hold the Confetti

There’s a seductive theory making the rounds that an expanded “Bush Doctrine” has planted seeds of democracy in the Middle East that are already bearing fruit. Editorial pages and columnists are making the argument that the invasion of Iraq, despite its messy aftermath, and the toppling of Saddam Hussein have led inexorably to elections in Arab lands. All aboard the freedom train!

Not so fast.

The Jan. 30 election for Iraq’s transitional national assembly was certainly an impressive display of courage: Men and women voted in the face of death threats from insurgents who had proved their ability to kill almost at will. But ballots have not yet diminished the carnage. This week a suicide bomber blew up his car in a crowded market south of Baghdad, killing as many as 125 people in the single bloodiest attack in the country since the fall of Hussein nearly two years ago. The grind of violence, directed equally at the Shiite majority and anyone who might aid the U.S.-backed government, may still trigger a civil war or other disintegration of Iraq.

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Dynastic Power

Even without such violence, elections do not equal freedom. Egypt has had elections of sorts for more than 40 years; fat lot of good they’ve done. After the 1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat, his successor, Hosni Mubarak, offered Egyptians the chance to vote yes or no every six years on his dictatorial rule. On Saturday, Mubarak announced a major change: Other candidates can run against him in this year’s presidential election. But because Mubarak has ruled under a state of emergency since taking power and was vague about what qualifications might be required of candidates, Egyptians understandably doubt the change will mean much. Most believe Mubarak will use it to smooth the way for the eventual accession of his son, Gamal, to the presidency.

In Syria, Bashar Assad took over after the 29-year presidential term of his father, Hafez Assad, ended with the senior Assad’s death in June 2000. The son has kept 16,000 Syrian troops in next-door Lebanon. The assassination two weeks ago of a Lebanese leader critical of Syria sparked massive street protests and demands from the United States, France and other nations that the soldiers be withdrawn. On Monday, Lebanon’s pro-Syrian government quit. Though this is held by the sunny-siders to be another proof of their thesis, Syria’s undisguised power of arms in Lebanon suggests much less than a march to peaceful independence.

A dynasty also holds strong in Saudi Arabia, where the ruling house of Saud put its name on the country. Friends of the ruling royals billed their February elections as a historic step forward, yet women were not allowed to vote and those elected will hold only half the seats on municipal councils. The royal family will maintain control. The government has not stopped imprisoning political foes or sentencing them to hundreds of lashes, administered in public as a clear warning to those who might follow.

In his Feb. 2 State of the Union speech, President Bush called on Saudi Arabia and Egypt to loosen the reins on their people. He demanded that Syria “end all support for terror and open the door to freedom.” Those passages expanded the early Bush Doctrine that nations harboring terrorists, a la Afghanistan, would be considered as guilty as the terrorists themselves and subject to regime change. The new codicil could be interpreted as: Spread liberty throughout the world, especially in the Middle East, or else.

Presidential harangues can encourage change, as elections in places like the Palestinian territories, Afghanistan and Iraq can inspire citizens elsewhere to ask: Why not us? Even Syria offered an olive branch Sunday, announcing that it had handed over a half brother of Hussein to Iraq. It didn’t say how long it had held the wanted man or when it gave him up, and the hand-over did not forestall Israel’s charge that Syria was linked to a Palestinian suicide bombing that killed five Israelis in Tel Aviv on Friday.

The stirrings in the Middle East are encouraging, but a few months do not a revolution make. Nor is it clear how much power rulers will share; it may have to be taken from below rather than granted from above. Washington thus has competing interests: Stability, which would be wrecked by popular uprisings, keeps the oil flowing and assures the continued help of authoritarian governments in the region for the global war on terrorism.

Fans of regime change and overnight democracy will brand this a worse-case scenario. It’s not. It realistically reflects the region’s history.

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The Realist View

The cause of Middle Eastern liberalization is not hopeless. The Cold War model of Western support for dictators as forces of anti-communist stability is dead. The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks accelerated U.S. attempts to get Middle Eastern nations to liberalize, giving a hard shove to efforts begun under President George H.W. Bush after the Persian Gulf War.

Two years ago, the Bush administration established a Middle East Partnership Initiative to funnel more money to the region to help encourage democracy. Think-tank studies indicate that it hasn’t produced much, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t in the future. Thomas Carothers of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace argues for making the partnership a private foundation with a professional staff to offer help to reformers. That would remove some of the knee-jerk anti-Americanism of those who might otherwise welcome funding for their democratic efforts.

The president and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice should keep pushing countries, gently or hard, to open up their political arenas. They should offer money and expertise, directly or indirectly, in forming political parties and holding genuinely free elections. If U.S. help seems too tainted, European allies should see their own interest in stepping in.

There is no doubt that change is occurring and offers reason for hope. Arab rulers who move quickly enough to make liberalization a peaceful, voluntary process would bring honor on themselves and their countries. But it is far too soon for even the believers to claim victory.