Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike. Plato, The Republic, bk. VIII 550-C
The United States has the reputation in the Middle East of being a status quo power, big on statements about democracy and stingy on delivery. I am constantly reminded by critics in this country and by friends in the region that programs like the Middle East Partnership Initiative and the Broader Middle East and North Africa initiative are Potemkin efforts that, like the Cheshire cat of Alice
in Wonderland, are receding slowly from view. But I question whether or not the critics have taken a look at what is happing in the region or whether they have thought through the implications of an aggressive American policy of democratization.
Qatar, one of the homes of the conservative Wahabi branch of Islam, is the site of the new branch of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Georgetown’s commitment to quality, liberal arts and its Catholic heritage have been fully respected and encouraged by the Emir of Qatar and his wife Sheikha Mooza.
Five Saudi women, for the first time in Saudi history, will be assigned to senior positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and one of them at the Ambassadorial level. For the first time, Saudi women will be able to run for office in the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry elections in November.
In Egypt, our pundits and cynics here had little good to say about the first contested Egyptian presidential elections. Of course the outcome was foreordained. But I remember the debates that were going on among the Egyptian opposition when I was Ambassador there over ten years ago about the need for a constitutional amendment that would permit a contested election for the President. Now they have it.
In virtually every country in the Middle East, excluding a few like Syria, change, which five years ago I would have called revolutionary, is taking place. In Kuwait, the elected Parliament twice voted down the ruling family’s effort to enfranchise women. On the third try the Emir succeeded. What the Parliament was saying was that change has to be digestible and it has to be digested. When he was Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah told me that he would drive the process of political reform, but that he would do so, one step forward at a time and give his very traditional society the breathing space to adapt to change. He did not want to go through the wrenching process of change, only to be forced by his people or parliament to backtrack.
Surely, the Crown Prince and now King of Saudi Arabia has a better sense of what his society can take than I do, despite my 35 years experience in the region. Or that President Mubarak knows how far he can go without unleashing forces that would drive Egypt away from America and back to confrontation with Israel. The costs of stagnation in the region are obvious. There is no faster way to bring on revolution and radicalism. But the costs of insensitive and too rapid change are likely to be just as great. To my way of thinking, the Administration today seems to be cautiously trying to do the right thing on the democracy program. To its critics, I would suggest that so long as the majority of the countries in the region are traveling the right road and moving forward, it doesn’t matter so much whether they are driving a Porsche or a Volkswagen.
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