Apparantly there have been several developments in Asia Minor that have been particularly newsworthy, and having not posted anything in while, I figured this was the perfect opportunity to say something. I guess the question I seek to answer is, is the Bush Doctrine responsible for the changes that we are seeing in the Middle East?
First, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has
declared that there will be election reform that country. Many are skeptical, considering that Mubarak has held on to power as Egypt's head of state since 1981. Granted, there are reasons for concern, but it should be noted that Ghana faced a similar situation after the Rawlings
coup in 1979, in which he kept his word and returned the nation to popular soverignty. Now Ghana enjoys the greatest stability out of any of the African nations. Granted, we should not place all of our faith in despots, but at this point, it doesn't hurt to hope.
Next up is the
situation in Lebanon, in which its government seems to have abruptly resigned. If you remember, the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri several weeks ago brought Syria back into the international spotlight as they were suspected to have been behind Hariri's assassination. Undoubtedly, Syria denied the allegations, but the incident put that nation in America's
sights once again (the last time being when Syria was accused of
smuggling Iraqi WMDs behind its borders).
So in the past week, there have been two significant events that hint at possible democratic reforms in the Middle East. It would be unsurprising if followers of the neo-con movement chalk this up as a victory for the Bush Doctrine; in other words, a legitimization of the Iraq War. They
did it a couple of years ago when Libya agreed to publicize and relinquish its nuclear weapons programs. But is that the reality? As Martin S. Indyk
points out:
As assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration, I had the dubious honour of starting the negotiations with the Libyans in May 1999. Five years of diplomacy, concluded by Bush, produced that Libyan disarmament. But in May 1999, the Libyans offered to give up their weapons of mass destruction in the very first meeting we held with them.
Not to mention that the Bush Administration has
pointed to the recent elections in Iraq as an a "resounding success," despite the fact that the country has continued to plunge into violence. Today's bombing in Hilla, Iraq, which
killed 125 people, should be indicative of the fact that although elections may serve to give legitimacy to a particular ruling body, they mean nothing if that ruling body has little power to exert any control. I have written
elsewhere:
Elections are little more than a symbolic gesture if the government that is elected is unable to actually exercise its authority over the whole of the nation. Free elections were held in the Reconstruction-era South, seeing the elecction of black US Senators (through the state legislatures), Congressmen, and Governors. After the Hayes Adminstration pulled out federal troops from the South in 1877, that progress was erased as order gave rise to an entire century of terrorism and repression. Even the majority of African nations started off as ambitious post-colonial democracies before they fell into chaos because of ethnic, religious, and political tensions. The point is, unless there is some sort of stable infrastructure to support the institution of democracy, these elections mean little.
And to go even further, the same
enthusiasm was exhibited over South Vietnam:
WASHINGTON, Sept. 3-- United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.
According to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong.
My point is, the Bush Doctrine isn't the end-all reason why these nations are moving in these directions. Their actions are entirely consistent with recent events in their respective histories: Egypt as a pariah for Arab reformism, especially after the work of its last two presidents, Gamal Nasser and Anwar Sadat; Lebanon, with its 39% Christian population, as a religious and political anomoly in the Middle East; and Libya as nation
hungry for international legitimacy. The Bush Doctrine has unarguably served to complicate political discourse in the region; for better or worse, only time can tell. And if the Bush Administration and the Republican Party want to legitimize their international image, they certainly should avoid outbursts like this:
Now we know where Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas) thinks the weapons of mass destruction are buried: in Syria, which he said he’d like to nuke to smithereens.
Speaking at a veterans’ celebration at Suncreek United Methodist Church in Allen, Texas, on Feb. 19, Johnson told the crowd that he explained his theory to President Bush and Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas) on the porch of the White House one night.
Johnson said he told the president that night, “Syria is the problem. Syria is where those weapons of mass destruction are, in my view. You know, I can fly an F-15, put two nukes on ‘em and I’ll make one pass. We won’t have to worry about Syria anymore.”
