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"Was Bush right after all?" This was the headline of the British newspaper The Independent last Tuesday. The fact that The Independent devoted its entire front page to the issue is significant because, two years ago, this left-of-center tabloid was the most vociferous opponent of the war to liberate Iraq. But The Independent is only joining a queue of other opponents of Iraq's liberation to wonder whether or not the toppling of Saddam Hussein may have given democratic forces in the Middle East a historic chance. A few days earlier The Guardian, another British left-of-center daily that had campaigned against the liberation of Iraq, offered this musing: "The war was a reckless, provocative, dangerous, lawless piece of unilateral arrogance. But it has nevertheless brought forth a desirable outcome which would not have been achieved at all, or so quickly, by the means that the critics advocated, right though they were in most respects." The two British dailies were following a trend set by anti-war newspapers across the Atlantic. "Bush may have got it right!" screamed a headline in the Christian Science Monitor. Newsweek, which had also opposed the war, offered "What Bush Got Right" on its cover. Writing in The New York Times, an anti-Bush paper of long standing, David Brooks went further to praise Paul Wolfowitz, the Pentagon's No. 2, as the man who helped put the shake into the Middle East. Similar soul-searching is taking place in French, German and other European media where the idea of liberating Iraq had found few supporters in 2003. Paris's daily Le Figaro has no qualms in asserting that "Bush was right, and those who wanted Saddam Hussein to remain in power were wrong." The German weekly Der Spiegel, a ferocious opponent of Bush, finds an even more charming formula: "All can be said in a brief sentence: Bush was right!" Canada's Toronto Star, another opponent of the Iraq war, admits that, as Bush had predicted, the toppling of Saddam Hussein dealt a death blow to the model of Arab despotism. This soul-searching is affecting other media. On CNN the other day I was taken to task by the anchorman interviewing me for not giving President Bush enough credit for "the revolution" in the Middle East. A few weeks earlier the same anchorman had sneered at my suggestion that, given a chance, the peoples of the Middle East would choose freedom over tyranny. The events that triggered this soul-searching include general elections in Afghanistan and Iraq, the constitutional reform promised in Egypt, local elections in Saudi Arabia, and, of course, the people power triggered in Lebanon by the assassination of Rafik Hariri. Interestingly, none of those engaged in this soul-searching appear to be quite sure as to what was it that Bush may have been right about after all? Was Bush right in branding Saddam Hussein as a murderous despot who had jailed, oppressed, exiled or killed his people for decades? Was Bush right in saying that without the destruction of the Baathist regime, the people of Iraq would not be able to dream of freedom let alone start building it? Posing these questions would help Western opinion-makers not only to understand what is going on in the Middle East but, more importantly, not to misunderstand the events. For my part Bush was, and remains, right not in his analysis of the political undercurrents of the region but in his understanding of American national interests. He realized that the status quo that the US had defended in the Middle East for almost 60 years, had produced a new and unusual streak of terrorism that poses the most serious threat to American national security. Bush realized that democratic societies do not allow the formation of religious and ideological swamps in which the deadly mosquitoes of terror breed and multiply. Democracies will never mother an ideology that in turn brings forth Al-Qaeda. So, where Bush was right was to announce the end of American support for the status quo in the Middle East. This means that the United States, having acted as an opponent of reform in the region, now intends to become the advocate of change. That change of strategy can be taken seriously because it reflects America's national interests rather than any attachment to democracy as an abstract ideal. Bush's message is simple: For the US to be safe it is vital that the Middle East become democratic. Having understood that, it is necessary to understand another fact. Popular aspiration for freedom and democracy has a long history in the Middle East. The first democratic movements appeared in Iran and Ottoman Turkey in the 1880s and led to constitutional revolutions that briefly transformed both states into constitutional monarchies. From the 1940s onwards the idea of democracy was pushed aside by that of nationalism in the context of independence movements in some Arab and other Muslim countries. From the mid-1950s socialism, in its various forms, was in the ascendancy. During the Cold War the Soviet bloc encouraged the anti-democratic left while the US threw its weight behind the anti-democratic establishments in place. From the mid-1970s Islamism emerged as an alternative to both the pro-Soviet left and the US-supported ruling elites. With the failure of nationalism, especially its pan-Arab variant, and the collapse of socialism, it was soon the turn of Islamism to lose its luster. That created a political vacuum that the revived democratic forces of the region have tried to fill since the mid-1990s. It was only after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 against New York and Washington that the US began to pay attention to the democratic potential that existed in the Middle East. What is curious, however, is that the democratic movement in the Middle East is still regarded with suspicion by parts of Western public opinion. Next week dozens of marches will be held in London, Paris, New York and other major Western cities to denounce the liberation of Iraq. Sponsored by the leftovers of the left, the "Greens", the so-called liberal-democrats, and the usual "useful idiots", these marches will give vent to the anger provoked by the toppling of Saddam Hussein. So far, however, there are no Western marches in support of the democratic movement in the Middle East. Hatred of Bush and/or America let many people of good will into taking the side of Mulla Omar and Saddam Hussein in 2001 and 2003. The same hatred may persuade at least some of those same people to become political human shields for other despots in the region and beyond. And that would be another betrayal of the peoples of the Middle East who wish to join the mainstream of global politics. Critics of the war to liberate Afghanistan and Iraq should move on. The peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq have spoken, and the Taleban and Saddam Hussein will never return to power. What matters now is to make sure that the Bush administration, having switched US policy from support for the status quo to that of support for democratic reform, practices what it preaches |
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