Where is Bush's democracy agenda?

When US President George W. Bush delivered his first major speech on democracy in the Middle East, it seemed as if the US had turned a page of history. "Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe, because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty," Bush said in the fall of 2003. "Therefore, the United States has adopted a new policy, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East".

To translate these words into something tangible, Bush pledged to support the cause of Arab democrats and rein in some regimes to allow more political participation. He also doubled the budget of the National Endowment for Democracy, urging it to focus "on the development of free elections, free markets, free press, and free labour unions in the Middle East".

For decades, US foreign policy towards the Middle East has been shaped by the essentialist argument pertaining that in order for America to protect its interests, it should continue to support present leaders and obstruct democracy in the Arab world. In the light of the two key US interests in the region - oil and Israel - they argue that under Islamic democracy, Muslims will elect fundamentalist groups that will use oil as a weapon against the West. In addition, these regimes will introduce absolutist demands on Israel and will not be satisfied until the Jewish state is eliminated.

As a consequence, the US should continue to support weak Middle Eastern regimes that depend on the West and facilitate its interests, albeit strong enough to keep their people under control.

The profession that Washington may have messed up in the Middle East, coupled with a promise of a fundamental shift in US policy, gave a glimmer of hope that the US may have at last decided to support the dream of Arab democrats. However, these hopes turned to be false.

As the Bush administration approaches its end, everyone seems now certain that the US has abandoned its commitment to democracy in the Middle East. The prevalent view today in Washington is that the president may have rocked the boat too much. Given the ill-fated venture in Iraq and the outcome of the Palestinian and the Egyptian elections, US officials believe that the Arab world is not yet ready for democracy. A stable political culture must be built before free elections in Muslim countries are held. It is, hence, safer and wiser for the US to leave Arab governments heed the call for democracy at their own pace. Indeed, these same officials know very well that the Arab world has long moved "at its own pace" towards democracy. The result was almost no democracy at all. But, this might be exactly what the US seeks right now.

Promoting democracy has, in fact, rarely crossed the line of rhetoric for US policy-makers regardless of their political affiliation, especially when it comes to the Middle East. In this particular region of the world, American officials have developed an imaginary clash between their democratic values and national interests. A choice had to be made, then, and the outcome was not in doubt. Short-term interests were favoured all along and democracy was almost always relegated to the dustbin. Hence, when Bush made promoting democracy in the Arab world synonymous with the US national and security interests, there were a lot of raised eyebrows.

The events of the past two years suggest that the US prefer to deal with present leaders than politicians worried about re-election. The US had done this before and will continue to do it whenever its interests deem that necessary.

Dr Marwan Kabalan is a lecturer in media and international relations, Faculty of Political Science and Media, Damascus University, Syria.