FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 22, 2004
The Bush administration’s planned Greater Middle East Initiative to promote an economic, political, and social transformation of the region has already elicited a harsh, defensive response from Arab leaders, even though it is an unassertive plan containing no pathbreaking ideas. Coming at a time of unprecedented political ferment in the region, the initiative is missing an opportunity to engage with Arab countries in a meaningful partnership for reform. Instead, argue Marina Ottaway and Thomas Carothers in The Greater Middle East Initiative: Off to a False Start, the administration could end up with the worst of both worlds, a initiative that offends and alienates Arab governments without challenging them to take concrete steps toward reform. Access the policy brief at www.carnegieendowment.org/democracy.
The initiative’s components—programs to promote women’s rights, legal aid, anti-corruption, civil society, literacy, education reform, trade, and finance sector reform—are mostly already present in existing U.S. and European programs in the region. American policy makers, it seems, are still paralyzed by an old problem: the clash between their desire for a deep-reaching transformation of the region and their underlying interest in maintaining the useful relations they have with the present governments of many non-democratic states there.
Despite the initiative’s timidity, Arab governments are upset at the lack of regional consultation beyond piecemeal bilateral discussions. They also resent the fact that the United States is launching a major political initiative about Middle East transformation without even mentioning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The plan to announce this problematic initiative at the June G8 should be abandoned, Ottaway and Carothers argue. Instead, the Bush administration should announce that the United States and Europe propose to engage Arab states in a series of meetings to discuss problems that threaten the security of both the Arab world and the West and to identify ways of addressing them. This will be a long and difficult process, but more likely to produce results than the present proposal.
The Middle East Political Reform Initiative of the Carnegie Endowment’s Democracy and Rule of Law Project offers analysis and practical experience on whether and how political reform could occur in the Arab world and what the United States and other external actors can do to encourage such change. Thomas Carothers and Marina Ottaway are senior associates in the project.