US/ Obama and the Changing Face of the Middle East

The politics of the Middle East is in flux, which may be the only thing all Americans can agree about. The most important long-term U.S. foreign policy objective in the region, stability, sought by presidents of both political parties for decades, does not sit well with flux. We are thrilled to see despots deposed, but we worry about what may follow. Americans, of all people, must stand for democracy, but we worry about the influence of radical Islamicists in these newborn democracies. What to do?

The first thing to note is that the current political upheavals have been a long time coming. Dictators like Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Mohammar Qaddafi in Libya used their monopoly of force to suppress political change but the cultures of their countries did not stop changing. It should be remembered that, until their expulsion in the 1950s, Jews were the largest ethnic group in Baghdad, to cite only one example of enormous demographic change. Populations have exploded and economic development has not kept pace. Those countries with oil wealth have been able to provide a decent living for their people while other countries like Egypt suffer from massive unemployment and endemic poverty. Dictators wreak great evil, but they also kept ethnic and religious tensions in check. Western culture and its values, often at odds with traditional Islamic values, have bit deeply into the cultures of the Middle East, so that these countries are experiencing the equivalent of the 60’s and the late eighteenth century founding at the same time. There is likely to be a great deal more instability in the next few years. That much is clear.

Each country in the Middle East faces its own set of challenges and U.S. policy is ill-served by lumping them together. The deposition of Gaddafi was achieved by his own people, with essential assistance from NATO to be sure, but the revolution in Libya was the work of Libyans. In Iraq, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was the work of U.S. troops, followed by an occupation. Tunisians and Egyptians achieved their revolutions with virtually no assistance from outside. These differences are significant, as they manner in which the despots were overthrown has left different legacies for the regimes that have replaced them.