Are Arab Reformers Nostalgic for Bush’s “Freedom Agenda”?

The answer is ‘yes,’ according to Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Doha Center in a recent Christian Science Monitor op-ed. The former POMED director of research explains that throughout the Middle East there is a sense of ‘Bush nostalgia,’ particularly for Arab reformers “who, while disliking the Bush administration in almost every way, were fully aware that Bush’s ‘freedom agenda’ helped usher in a promising moment for Arab reform.” Hamid criticizes current U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East for its “business as usual” approach – turning a blind eye to illiberal practices of government suppression in return for supporting U.S. regional objectives. Though “the Obama administration’s Middle East policy is a welcome respite from the anger and acrimony that dominated Bush’s final years,” they still need a more “coherent strategy” and “imaginative policy” toward the region.

Gregg Carlstrom provides qualified support for Hamid’s argument. He disagrees with the notion that the Arab world misses Bush or his policies but agrees that “the Obama administration has really backed away from democracy promotion in the Middle East.” He laments Obama’s retreat on this issue, specifically as it relates to corrupt elections in Sudan and a suppressed civil society in Egypt. At the same time, he suggests some pragmatic reasons for this foreign policy approach, including a need to publicly break from his predecessor and a practical inability to back up democracy-laden rhetoric with consequences for noncompliance. In sum, Carlstrom expresses his frustration with the democracy promotion policies of the last three administrations: “The Bush administration’s selective and short-lived support for democracy in the Middle East hardly deserves any plaudits. But neither does Obama’s return to the short-sighted realism of the Clinton era.”