How can the United States best contribute to the democratic reform of the Middle East? This is a question that has preoccupied the U.S. government since the terrorist attacks of September 11. The democratic transformation of the Middle East was one of the reasons for invading Iraq, and it is scheduled to be a key issue at the upcoming summit of industrialized countries in June. For more than a decade, the United States and Europe successfullysupported Poland’s democratic transformation. Is there anything in the experience that can be applied to the Middle East?
Central Europe’s transformation would not have occurred without opposition figures like Poland’s Lech Walesa and the Czech Republic’s Vaclav Havel. The United States can’t create democratic leaders with their stature in the Middle East, but it can help create the conditions in which they might arise by being consistent in its support for the reform-minded segment of the population and the institutions that support them.
Decades before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the AFL-CIO made common cause with Solidarity and its leader Lech Walesa. Peace Corps volunteers and Fulbright scholars were in Poland — sharing ideas, making friends and demonstrating by example what goes into building a civil society. Early on, the international community helped create the conditions for the growth of nongovernmental organizations, charities, local interest groups, independent media outlets and think tanks in Poland through grants and exposure to Western models, as well as the creation of partnerships with like-minded organizations and associations. Acknowledging the work of these organizations helped develop and strengthen the democratic opposition there.
Successful application of this strategy to the Middle East would mean not only engaging in many of the same activities, but also encouraging like-minded democracies from outside the region to speak the language of reform and apply the same benchmarks when dealing with the Middle East. At the upcoming G-8 summit, the world’s leading democracies should agree on what those benchmarks are and how to support them. For its part, the United States should pledge to focus all bilateral assistance to countries in the Middle East on their democratic transformation, just as it did with Poland and Central Europe generally.
Working with the resources indigenous to the region is another critical ingredient of a successful strategy for promoting reform. In Poland, the Catholic Church played a crucial role in supporting the reformist movement. The church had the respect of the overwhelming majority of Poles, and it supported the opposition’s efforts to organize and disseminate the message of change.
In the Middle East, secular reformists constitute a small minority of those advocating change. The most active and organized groups calling for change and greater democratization are Islamists. While some of them are opposed to democratic processes, others are not. For the United States, Iraq has been a painful lesson on the need to engage religious leaders early and accept the view that religion will be a component of any democratic transformation of the Middle East. Organizations like the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy have an important role to play in the United States and the Middle East by disseminating reliable information about Islam and democracy, as well as encouraging a cross-cultural dialogue on the subject.
Economic development and a sense of future prosperity are critical foundations for the development of democratic societies. Overcoming the legacy of stagnant centralized economics was a primary focus of the reforms in Central Europe throughout the 1990s. The United States helped promote Poland’s Balcerowicz Plan by encouraging macroeconomic stabilization, privatization, eliminating bureaucratic bottlenecks, balancing the budget and debt forgiveness.
In this regard, the funds it gave the World Bank and the IMF for institution-building were far better spent and better received domestically than the money spent on U.S. consultants. From this perspective, funding for projects like the restoration of the marshlands in Southern Iraq ortherebuildingof Afghanistan’s agricultural sector would be better received if done through the World Bank.
Finally, the United States needs staying power because democracy building in the Middle East will take at least as many decades as it took in Central Europe. The expatriate community can have an important role to play in keeping alive Washington’s commitment to support reform. In the Polish case, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jan Nowak Jezioranski and other Polish-Americans helped keep the United States focused on Poland’s democratic transformation. Under the leadership of Myra and Kaz Lenard, the Polish-American Congress was also instrumental in generating and maintaining support for reform within the U.S. government and on Capitol Hill. Arab Americans need to form a similar constituency to affect public attitudes about the Middle East in the United States and ensure that the U.S. government remains committed to the region’s democratic transformation.
Susan Braden served as director for Central Europe at the Clinton White House. Michael Wyganowski was first secretary at the Polish Embassy in Washington.
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