As if the failed state of former PLO leader Yassir Arafat were not enough, the simultaneous flare-up of both Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories should be a major indictment to the widely-held neoconservative idea that democracy will foster peace and stability in the Islamic and Arab world.
Israel’s less-than-democratic neighbors have behaved predictably and sensibly after realizing that they have little ability to take on the Israelis conventionally. Egypt, Jordan, and even Syria, have not had a serious engagement with the Israelis since 1973. Jordan and Egypt have signed formal peace treaties. Meanwhile, the democratically ruled Palestinian territories and Lebanon have allowed Hamas and Hezbollah respectively to take part in their governments. Indeed, Hamas is the new ruling party in Palestine. The rise of these kinds of fractured governments has led to ungoverned regions in both countries. In these vacuums of power, terrorists have operated to launch rockets and terrorist attacks on Israel. The presence in government of politicians under the Islamic flag of Hamas and Hezbollah impairs the ability of any such government to control terrorism, because democracies move slowly and inefficiently compared to other types of governments. While Egypt cracked down on Islamic fanatics in the 1990s, and Jordan famously expelled the PLO in “Black September,” the democratic governments in the Middle East have shown they lack the unity, will power, and single-minded brutality to do anything about the terrorists operating within their midst.
More authoritarian regimes can be expected to respond to the punitive raids Israel is now inflicting on Lebanon. Lybia rather famously calmed down after Reagan’s bombing run in 1986, for example. But Israel is trying to do something very unlikely to succeed in pressuring the Lebanese regime with retaliatory force to control the non-state actors operating in its midst. The beginning of any such solution is to have a government capable of governing on the other end of the JDAMs.
In Iraq, we’re intensively pursuing the same pro-democracy policies with little apparent success in terms of actual governance by the Iraqis. Even if this regime were somehow able to get a handle on the Sunni and Islamic extremists itself, what will we do or say when such a regime acts with a democratic mandate to institute crazy policies at home and abroad? Or when it expels us? Or when it has a rapprochement with neighboring Iran? Will we retreat from our pro-democracy policies, as we should have already, or will proponents of these policies define down expectations to the point where ridiculous utterances about giving terrorists a chance to govern will come from our highest officials. Oh wait, that already happened.
Democracies work when the people of a nation are educated, peace-loving, sensible, attached to the status quo, and balanced by a vital civil society. None of these conditions prevail in any Middle Eastern country, especially Iraq. I was mocked on Little Green Footballs over a year ago for expressing some concern about Lebanon’s more democratic reforms and its expulsion of Syrian overseers. Will the neoconservatives who praised this policy ever admit they’re wrong? Or are they so blinded by their highly ideological approach to the Middle East, which misdiagnoses our fellow feeling with Israel as a result of their “democracy,” rather than our common interests, and cannot see that the current problems are directly traceable to more democracy in the Middle East? And why is democracy not the answer? Simple: the people of the Middle East, even when they can pick their rulers democratically, still don’t like us or Israel and will pursue policies inimical to both nations’ interests.
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I used to be one of the administration’s “true believers” when it came to this democracy experiment in the Middle East, but I’m getting very, very cynical and worried now. I fear that we’re going to inevitably lose this war because of these Wilsonian policies.
Installing brutal, anti-jihadist dictatorships in the region might be the next most humane option that we have if this thing in Iraq completely falls apart.
“Brutal, anti-jihadist dictatorships…” Wasn’t that Saddam Hussein at one time?
He was, but, unlike his neighbors, he proved far less rational and far less amenable to ordinary incentives as demonstrated by his refusal to withdraw from Kuwait in 1990. He also began to seek operational alliances with Islamic terrorists more and more as he became isolated in the late 1990s.
Since when have brutal dictatorships been particularly amenable to logic and reason? All they care about it power: keeping it and expanding it. One doesn’t need to be the smartest, most logical cookie in order to be a ruthlessly successful dictator. Witness Kim Jong-Il.
Installing brutal dictatorships is just playing Russian Roulette with a fully-loaded gun. Which is why a partition of Iraq, if it comes to that, is probably the best remaining solution.