U.S. to Push for Broader Democratic Reforms in Arab World

In a bid to balance the growing U.S. military presence in the Middle East with a more active political role, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on Thursday announced a new Bush administration initiative to press for greater democracy, economic openings and education reform in the Arab world.

“It has become increasingly clear that we must broaden our approach to the region if we are to achieve success. We must work with peoples and governments to close the gulf between expectation and reality -- called the hope gap,” Powell said in a speech to the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington.

“Any approach to the Middle East that ignores its political, economic and educational underdevelopment will be built upon sand,” he said.

Powell’s speech, which offered few details, comes at a time when the administration is under fire for letting the U.S.-declared war on terrorism and a possible invasion of Iraq overshadow attention to the region’s underlying political and economic problems.

U.S. diplomats point to the dearth of democracy in the Arab world as a critical factor breeding Islamic extremism, but the war on terrorism has led Washington to “put aside its democratic scruples and seek closer ties with autocracies throughout the Middle East and Asia,” says Thomas Carothers of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in the upcoming issue of Foreign Affairs.

Powell’s remarks -- and two earlier speeches by CIA Director George J. Tenet and Richard Haass, the State Department’s director of policy planning -- were also meant to lay out a vision of how the United States hopes to interact with more than 50 countries in the Islamic world, stretching from Morocco to Indonesia.

In a speech to the Nixon Center on Tuesday night, Tenet warned that the United States cannot win the war on terrorism “simply by defeating and dismantling Al Qaeda. To claim victory, we and our allies will need to address the circumstances that bring peoples to despair, weaken governments and create power vacuums that extremists are all too ready to fill.”

Tenet also said the United States needs to have some candid discussions with allies about the need to embrace democratic norms, encourage moderate alternatives to radical Islam and to promote opportunities for all Muslims, particularly women. “Friendship without such honesty is a hollow thing indeed,” he added.

Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations last week, Haass said that U.S. administrations, Republican and Democrat, have failed to make the kind of democratization that has swept the rest of the world a priority in the Islamic world.

In the name of ensuring oil supplies, containing the Soviet Union, Iran and Iraq, securing military bases and dealing with the Arab-Israeli crisis, the United States created a “democratic exception,” Haass said -- and in the process missed opportunities to build stable and prosperous partners.

“It is not in our interest -- or that of the people living in the Muslim world -- for the United States to continue this exception. U.S. policy will be more actively engaged in supporting democratic trends in the Muslim world than ever before,” Haass said. To launch the U.S.-Middle East Partnership, Powell announced an increase of $29 million in American aid on top of the more than $1 billion in nonmilitary assistance that goes to the region. Additional funding is expected next year, he said.

U.S. officials acknowledge that $29 million is a drop in the bucket for almost two dozen countries with a population totaling more than 260 million people.

Powell pledged that the United States will engage with both the public and private sectors to help ease chronic unemployment in the Arab world.

“Hope begins with a paycheck,” Powell said.

On the political front, Washington will seek partnerships with community leaders to strengthen nongovernmental civil society, encourage political participation and “lift the voices of women,” Powell said.

“We reject the condescending notion that freedom will not grow in the Middle East, or that there is any region of the world that cannot support democracy,” he said.

The United States will seek to provide scholarships and help create better schools and more opportunities for higher education, again focusing particularly on girls.

“When girls’ literacy rates improve, all the other important indicators of development in a country improve as well,” Powell said.

Some Arab allies welcomed the initiative but faulted the timing.

“It would have been helpful to have done this earlier, although we understand that there are regional issues that delayed the announcement. But we’re still glad it came,” said one Arab envoy, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II said it is an important initiative and a “positive step toward bridging the gap between the Arab world and the United States.”

Egypt also praised the U.S. move. “The objectives raised -- liberalizing economies and enhancing education and expanding democracy -- are all issues which are valid and we are working on ourselves,” said Nabil Fahmy, the Egyptian ambassador to the United States.

But he added that progress is required on the Arab-Israeli peace process in order to defuse tensions and create an environment conducive to change.