"Bush Nostalgia" in the Middle East? (II) Posted by Shadi Hamid

My "Bush nostalgia" piece has provoked some interesting responses, including from Daniel Larison, Matt Duss, Greg Scoblete, and Gregg Carlstrom. Duss makes an important, though often overlooked, point:

Bush’s abandonment of democracy promotion was in large part a panicked response to forces bolstered by the central element of his broader Middle East agenda: The war in Iraq.

Indeed. A main reason Bush abandoned it was the electoral rise of Islamist parties in Egypt, Palestine, and elsewhere. Perhaps just as important, though, was Iraq's deterioration, as the U.S found itself embroiled in war against an growing insurgency. Iraq soon sucked all the oxygen, and nearly everything else was pushed to the side. The rapidly changing situation in Iraq, coupled with Iran’s nuclear ambitions, meant (apparently) that the U.S. needed the support of Arab autocrats and could hardly afford to undermine them.

So, in case you needed other reasons to think the Iraq war a mistake, you now have another. The war smothered the democracy agenda. But, of course, it’s not as simple as that. I don’t like saying it, but the Iraq war probably played a significant – though not decisive – role in making the “Arab spring” possible. Yes, as Gregg Carlstrom emphasizes, Bush's efforts to support to democracy were largely rhetorical. But there’s a reason why the rhetoric had some bite and wasn’t dismissed out of hand. Bush seemed – and I emphasize “seemed” here – to have the courage of his convictions, in part because he did something rather crazy and invaded, in somewhat random fashion, an Arab autocracy.

The psychological effect of this shouldn’t be overlooked, least of all on other Arab autocrats. One of the worst dictators the region had ever seen had been shown to be a paper tiger. More importantly, it became possible for Arabs across the region to visualize the fall of someone who had previously seemed immune to internal and external challenges. What was once an imaginary proposition – that an Arab autocrat could be unseated – became real. In the January 30, 2005 elections, Iraqis went out in large numbers to cast their ballots for the first time. These images were transmitted throughout the region. And for those who wanted to believe that other Arabs could have that chance, but had no idea what it could, or would, look like, they now did.  

As for what this “Arab spring” actually was, or wasn't, Daniel Larison writes:

Arab reformers have little or nothing about which they can feel nostalgic…I would stress that Arab reformers cannot point to much of anything substantive that they received as a result of the 'freedom agenda.'

This, I think, is a valid point worth delving into. First of all, “nostalgia” isn’t based on objective reality, but on a perception of what that reality was in retrospect. As such, nostalgia is more a function of disappointment with the present, then actual approval of the past. In any case, the reality of what was happening under Bush is less important than how people perceived it. Democratic openings are very much about opposition actors perceiving that something that wasn’t possible before was now possible. That perception, whatever we might think about it, was real.

Reformers can also point to the largest pro-democracy mass mobilizations the Arab world had ever seen. In 2005, more than 150,000 Egyptians took to the streets, participating in protests, demonstrations, and campaign rallies. 50,000 Bahrainis – one-eighth of the country’s population – rallied for constitutional reform. These are big numbers, considering the often prohibitive risks of open opposition. Now, we can get in a debate about how much of the “Arab spring” was Bush-related. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that so many of these things happened in 2004-5 at almost the same time that Bush was getting serious about democracy. One way to get a better sense of the causal linkages is to talk to reformers themselves, since it doesn’t matter so much whether there was a causal link as much as whether they thought there was. And, in this, I’d say the prevalent opinion is that the Bush administration played a not negligible role. We could get into specific case studies, such as the Muslim Brotherhood’s unprecedented 2004 “reform initiative” – an impressive distillation of the group’s newfound pro-democracy focus. It was partly, and rather transparently, a response to the Bush administration’s own Broader Middle East Initiative to the extent that the Brotherhood alludes to BMEI in the document several times (though disapprovingly).

All of this aside, what the Bush administration’s rhetorical posturing did was put democracy in the Middle East on the top of the international agenda. Democracy became the buzz word. It got people talking, thinking, and then acting. Perhaps an appropriate way of putting it was that Bush lit the fire with a match that was already there. Of course, that doesn't excuse, and in some ways makes much worse, the subsequent, tragic turn of events. 

Comments

[r4i sdhc]

Very well listed.I was wondering this information only.China has had much to be thankful for during the Bush years. Even the president's biggest mistake, the war in Iraq, worked to Beijing's advantage, stretching America's military capacity and weakening its international reputation as China's continued to rise.

[ghd straighteners]

The simple fact is that the carrot-based approach being used by ISAF in Southern Afghanistan is fundamentally NOT in the tradition of modern counter-insurgency. It even differs in fundamental ways from what the US military and proxy armies did in Iraq. And because of the many limitations on trying to fight a population-centric COIN war I fear that it will fail and will not only harm US interests, but will risk destabilizing Afghanistan over the long-term