Source: Up Close
JENNIFER COOK: I’m Jennifer Cook. Thanks for joining us. The United States remains resolutely committed to establishing democracy in the Middle East. But, with no real victory on the ground and growing scepticism both within the region and globally, just how effective is US policy? Today’s guest believes the US is not only failing to keep apace with change in the Middle East, it is in danger of not being able to protect its own interests unless it does a major re-think. Professor Marina Ottaway is a long-time analyst of the formation and transformation of political systems. She has written on political reconstruction in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans and African countries. Her most recent book Getting to Pluralism, co-authored with Amr Hamzawy, was published in 2009. Prof.Ottaway is the director of the Middle East program for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and is based in Washington DC. She was at The University of Melbourne for a conference held by the National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies on the US democracy promotion in the Middle East. Prof.Ottaway, thank you for joining us.
MARINA OTTAWAY: You’re very welcome, my pleasure.
JENNIFER COOK: I’d like to begin by asking you, just how important is the US to most countries in the Middle East? Is the United States in danger of over-estimating their importance in the region?
MARINA OTTAWAY: The United States is an important country. It is a big player. You have to remember for example it has military bases in almost all the Gulf countries. It is a very dominant presence. But that should not lead the United States to overestimate its influence. Because the presence does not automatically translate into influence.
JENNIFER COOK: And is that a mistake that the US is making?
MARINA OTTAWAY: I think the United States tends to over-estimate its power and its influence on the situation.
JENNIFER COOK: In what ways?
MARINA OTTAWAY: Well, the United States, particularly under the Bush administration, got seduced by its own military power. With the Soviet Union no longer existing, the United States really remained the major military power in the world. They really had no competition on the military level. And it thought that as a result that it could impose what it wanted – its own solution on the Middle East. What it discovered with the invasion of Iraq and with the invasion of Afghanistan is that it could intervene, it could militarily eliminate the old regimes, but military power does not allow you to set up a new regime. At that point you need diplomacy, you need politics and so on. And there, the power of the United States is much more limited.
JENNIFER COOK: Focusing on the achievements and the shortcomings of the George W. Bush era in promoting democracy in the region and the implications of that legacy for the Obama administration which is what you are talking about here, why is exploring this legacy so critical to understanding US policy?
MARINA OTTAWAY: Well, because the most important problems that the Obama administration is facing are a legacy of what Bush did or did not do during his tenure. The problem of Iraq, the problem of Afghanistan and even the problem with the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations – that situation is worse now than it was at the beginning of the Bush administration because of the neglect in the Bush years.
JENNIFER COOK: So, it is this contrast between the hard politics of Bush and the soft diplomacy approach of Obama. Is one more effective than the other? Do you think they’re both flawed?
MARINA OTTAWAY: Well, the problem with the soft policy of Obama is that when he started running into obstacles – he came to power saying that you deal with Iran with an open hand rather than a clenched fist. And he did in fact try a diplomatic approach. Tried the negotiations and so on. But when Iran did not respond, then the Obama administration very quickly started going back more to a Bush-like policy of imposing sanctions and so on. So that, essentially, the Obama administration has not been able to maintain the new policy that Obama had discussed when he first came in. And what I see, more and more the policies of the Obama administration beginning to resemble those of the Bush administration.
JENNIFER COOK: Do you think there is a part of the Obama administration being seduced by their own military power as Bush did? As an irresistible lure.
MARINA OTTAWAY: It is less the military power as such. Because the Obama administration has not used military power. And in fact, it is much less likely to use the military power, in part because it is quite aware of the fact that the US military is over-extended already. The US military had serious problems under the Bush administration, maintaining a sufficient deployment of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. They had, for example, to lengthen the period of deployment overseas and to shorten the periods at home. And that had an impact, not only on the morale of the military it also had an impact on the level of preparedness. Because the military has to go back to base and be re-trained and re-equipped and being out in the field all the time takes a toll on the level of the military.
JENNIFER COOK: This is Up Close, coming to you from The University of Melbourne, Australia. I’m Jennifer Cook, our guest today is Professor Marina Ottaway and we are talking about the United States’ promotion of democracy in the Middle East. Professor Ottaway, in the foreword to your book Getting to Pluralism the president of the Carnegie Endowment for the Middle East program, Jessica T. Mathews says, ‘a first-rate think-tank should produce work whose conclusions are directly useful to policy makers.’ A goal, she says, you achieve. So, let’s begin by asking, who are these policy makers? And what is your message to them?
MARINA OTTAWAY: Well, of course, it depends on the topic, but we try to reach the State Department, we try to reach Members of Congress, we try to reach the Defence Department, the White House and so on. Whenever we write something we try to distribute it as widely as possible. We have a pretty good communications department. Of course, the message, I think, concerning the issue of democracy promotion is that we really need to set much more modest goals. That we are not going to be in a position to transform these countries in our own image in the short run. And in fact we have to be very careful about not setting goals that you cannot maintain consistently. One very serious problem that the United States has run into is that it has promoted multi-party elections, but then backed out as soon as the elections led to the victory of what from the point of view from the United States is the wrong political party. We did that in the case of the 2006 elections in Palestine when Hamas won the elections and the United States refused to recognise and to work with a Hamas government for example.
JENNIFER COOK: So, let’s look at the political reality of the countries in the Middle East. You say the political process there, where there is a political life, is dominated by three sets of actors. Who are they? And, how do they intersect?
MARINA OTTAWAY: Well, most of the power in the Arab countries is really in the hands of the executive. Most Arab countries, with a few exceptions, have an elected parliament or at least a partly elected parliament. One that is partly elected and partly appointed. But parliaments have no power. By and large they rubber-stamp the decisions that have been taken by the executive. So, there is no doubt that that is the most major political actor. And one of the ways to promote a democracy, essentially, is to try and support people who have the reform aspirations, the reformers from within the government. The problem is that most of the reformers within the governments want economic and administrative reform. But not really more political participation – so, there is a limit of what can be done. The other political actors are the secular parties and the Islamist parties. And the problem for the United States, in terms of democracy promotion, is that right now in most Arab countries the Islamist parties are more popular, and the more stronger parties than the secular parties. And as a result, the risk for the United States that by pushing the countries to allow more democratic elections what they see is the victory of the Islamist parties. This happened in Egypt in the 2005 elections when the Muslim Brothers won 20% of the seats in the parliament. And in fact, the Bush administration stopped promoting elections in the Middle East, after that.
JENNIFER COOK: Now in your book you deliberately emit a section on civil society because your research found that under the present circumstances, civil society organisations are not major political players in the Arab world. Can you explain how this goes against the conventional wisdom among democracy advocates?
MARINA OTTAWAY: Well, the idea that underlies the promotion of democracy is that in order for a country to be democratic, its citizens have to be active, have to be organised, not only go out and vote once every four years or whatever, but to be organised into pressure groups and pay staying attention to what the government is doing. This is absolutely true. There is no doubt that in a functioning democracy, citizens do not just get involved once every four years, at least some citizens are involved on a more constant basis. The problem is the translating this idea into democracy promotion has led the United States and other countries, the European countries do the same, to support a lot of non-governmental organisations that are very small, that are not terribly well organised, very often that only exist because of the foreign funding for them. And those are not really important actors right now. They really have very little influence and will probably continue to have very little influence. The civil society has an impact when it is organised on a larger scale. When you have social movement. The small NGOs, they do very good work in certain fields, for example, there is nothing wrong with NGOs as such, but that is a very different type of organisation from the one that can become a major political actor in a country.
JENNIFER COOK: On Up Close, this episode, we are speaking about the United States' promotion of democracy in the Middle East with Prof.Marina Ottaway. I’m Jennifer Cook. Can you tell us what you mean when you describe the political scene in the Middle East as a situation of stagnation’?
MARINA OTTAWAY: Well, you know, if you imagine a display of pictures of Arab leaders in the Middle East right now, the faces that you see in 2010 are by and large the same ones that you saw in the year 2000. Some of them are even the same ones that you saw in 1990. The president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, who is up for re-election in 2011 and may very well run again, although he is well in his 80s, has bee in power since 1981. So, essentially there is this tremendous continuity. There is very little turnover.
JENNIFER COOK: So, you’ve said that the personalities in power in the Arab world, they’re the same as ten years ago, or if not it is their children, they’re part of the same dynasties of families, what does that mean for the region and what does that mean for the US when they come in and try and promote democracy? Are the people even interested?
MARINA OTTAWAY: Well, the problem of democracy, in promoting democracy, is not that the average citizen is not interested or does not understand democracy. Very often people say, ‘people in this country don’t understand democracy’. That is not the obstacle to democracy. The obstacle to democracy are the leaders who understand too well what democracy involves. That it leads to their demise as leaders. And therefore do not want any part of it. One thing that we know from vast experience is when people are given the chance to vote they go and vote. We have all seen the pictures, you know, of the inked finger and so on. People do vote. People do want to be able to participate. They’re just not being given a chance.
JENNIFER COOK: That’s right and the people who are in power, when you’re given power, they’re reluctant to let it go and they have the back up of the security forces or the military there. Could you explain to us a bit the role that they play in keeping the incumbent regimes in power?
MARINA OTTAWAY: Well, I think, most Arab countries are police states. Even when the military and the police are not up front and directly in government and in some periods they are. You have heard, Nasser was a military man, Sadat was a military man, and Mubarak himself is a military man. In Algeria, you have had all sorts of military governments and so on, but, even if the military is not directly in position, if generals or colonels are not directly in position of authority, you know that there are very strong security forces that back up these regimes. One Arabic word that everybody learns very soon after the first visit to an Arab country is the mukhabarat. The mukhabarat are the security forces. And there are mukhabarat representatives in many countries on every street corner practically, informing the government, keeping an eye what is going on and so on.
JENNIFER COOK: That is fascinating to an outsider. Could you just talk us through what it is like, being there?
MARINA OTTAWAY: You don’t necessarily notice it. You know, I lived in Cairo for four years and after you have been in a neighbourhood for a while, very often you learn through the grapevine who is the mukhabarat representative on that block. You know, he is just one of those blokes who you think, ah, unemployed and standing around on the street corner, or sitting in the café and so on. But, in fact, he is an informer. By and large, you don’t have the sense of a strong security presence until something happens. And then things change.
JENNIFER COOK: So, what lessons must the West learn, if they’re to have any chance of affecting, real, sustainable change in the Middle East, or is it something that they should just back away from?
MARINA OTTAWAY: No, I don’t think it is just something that we should back away from. I think we should continue talking about democracy. We should continue to be honest with these regimes and have the courage to say this is not a democratic regime. I think one thing that I hold against the Obama administration, for example, is that it really has not said anything about the forthcoming Egyptian elections that are clearly totally manipulated. These are not going to be free and fair elections. And I don’t think the United States should, you know, send in the military to ensure free and fare elections, but at the same time, we cannot ignore the fact that this is not a normal election process and we should comment about it. So, I think it is important essentially, to continue talking about the problem, but in terms of really making a push, I think, we cannot hope to promote democracy, if there are not a viable alternatives to the present government in the country. And if there is not an opposition, or at least, if there is not an opposition that we are willing to see come in to power, then we better stay out of the fray.
JENNIFER COOK: That is really interesting because the idea of an effective opposition is central to any notion of a democratic society, isn’t it?
MARINA OTTAWAY: Yes, democracy, yes, there is a culture of democracy that gets promoted. I can only speak for myself, but I suspect that this is a feeling that is shared by many. Are you not trust the American government to stay democratic if there was not an opposition? You know, I think that most American presidents have had a serious problem with the press, which in the United States is very free and is very critical and can give them a hard time. Now, because of the political system and because of the existence of an opposition, because of a mobilised civil society, American presidents know that they cannot close down newspapers, but I think the instinct to be there, if there was not such a, you know, if the possibility existed - nobody likes to be criticised, nobody likes to lose. What keeps a system democratic is really the balance between the government and the opposition.
JENNIFER COOK: And you were saying in the Middle East that balance…
MARINA OTTAWAY: Does not exist. Essentially, you have very strong governments and very weak oppositions, by and large.
JENNIFER COOK: Now, given that there is a growing popularity of Islamist movements in the region, how is the United States responding to that, or how do you think they should respond to that?
MARINA OTTAWAY: Well, United States, by and large is very leery of Islamist movements. Even in the case of Turkey that now has an Islamist movement in party, the AKP Party, is the party in power. It has followed very democratic policies by and large, it is extremely moderate. The United States is somewhat suspicious. It really does not like the Islamist parties – despite the fact that United States is a very religious country. Certainly compared to other industrialised societies, an extremely religious society. But it finds it very difficult to accept that religiosity in other societies and this is true in Turkey does not translate into extremist. That said, there is also some reason to be sceptical of some of the Islamist parties because most of the Islamist parties in the Middle East are inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, in terms of their ideology. And the ideology of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood – although the Muslim Brotherhood has renounced violence and kept its promise quite a long time ago – the fact is that there are also violent groups that are inspired by the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. So, there is this tension. That said, I think when Islamist groups decided to participate in the politics of their country, in other words, decided to participate legally, you know, compete for elections, and so on. I think it is not for the United States to try to put obstacle in the way of these countries participating. And the United States should not essentially support the regimes that become repressive because they’re afraid of Islamist parties, because very often, what they’re afraid of and this is quite true of the Egyptian regimes for example, what they’re afraid of is not so much a takeover by extremists – they don’t want the competition of the only viable political opposition that exists in the country. So, the United States should really be much more open towards these movements.
JENNIFER COOK: Taking what is happening in the Middle East and this promotion of democracy in how it is working and how it isn’t, what are the ramifications for the up and coming economies? How do they figure within this context?
MARINA OTTAWAY: Well, China is becoming an increasingly important player in the Middle East. Its economy is growing very quickly. It does not produce enough energy, does not have enough resources of gas and oil that are needed for its growing economy. So essentially it is becoming a big buyer in the Middle East, in other parts of the world, not only for oil, but also for other mineral resources and so on. There is no doubt that they are players. And they are players that are important certainly to the Arab and oil producing countries. And the presence of China is not a democratic presence. It is not a democratic country itself, so, it is not unduly worried about that these countries don’t have functioning parliaments or that they are authoritarian regimes. So, in that sense it has, if you want, a negative influence. Although, I cannot think of any instance where the Chinese government has directly opposed any attempts of, you know, holding elections or anything like that. But it is certainly never going to be a strong voice for democracy.
JENNIFER COOK: Prof.Ottaway, thank you so much for your time today.
MARINA OTTAWAY: My pleasure
JENNIFER COOK: I’m Jennifer Cook and on today’s episode we’ve been talking with Prof. Marina Ottaway, the director of the Middle East program for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Relevant links, a full transcript and more info on this episode can be found at our website at upclose.unimelb.edu.au. Up Close is brought to you by Marketing and Communications of The University of Melbourne, Australia. This episode was recorded on the 21st October, 2010 and our producers were Eric van Bemmel and Kelvin Param. Audio engineering by Gavin Nebauer. Up Close is created by Kelvin Param and Eric van Bemmel. I’m Jennifer Cook. Until next time, goodbye.