Newsletter - February 2007
POMED Updates
POMED is pleased to announce that it has officially received its 501c3 non-profit status. This means that all contributions to POMED are tax deductible to the full extent of the law. Looking ahead to the rest of 2007, we have many plans for expansion but we need your support. If you have enjoyed these newsletters, attended our events, or read our op-eds, please consider a donation so that POMED can further its mission. With our online donations, it is easier than ever to contribute. Just follow this link to get started.
Legislative Update
At its outset, the 110th Congress shows modest signs that it will take a more constructive, balanced approach to democracy promotion in the Middle East than its predecessor. In the House, H.R. 1, the Implementing the 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act, appeared to signal an approach to national security policy that puts greater emphasis on aid, diplomacy, and American legitimacy and less on the Department of Defense. With respect to appropriations, leaders in both the House and Senate have penned letters urging President Bush to increase funding for foreign affairs in his fiscal year 2008 budget request. And finally, there is renewed talk about efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Of the six pieces of legislation House Democrats aimed to pass in their first hundred hours, the very first addressed national security. Like the other five bills included in this initial agenda, H.R. 1 sought to illustrate a popular rejection of Republican approach to public policy, and broad support for a new direction under Democratic leadership. Specifically, the bill sought to implement the 9/11 Commission Recommendations that had been passed over by the previous, Republican-controlled Congress. The recommendations incorporated into H.R. 1 fit into four categories: strengthening U.S. homeland defense, including local capacities to respond to emergencies; improving intelligence oversight; bolstering non-proliferation efforts; and undermining the appeal of Islamic extremism through aid and diplomacy.
If signed into law, the diplomatic and aid initiatives contained within the H.R. 1 hold some potential for directly and indirectly encouraging democracy in the region. The bill aims to improve educational opportunities in Arab and predominantly Muslim countries by enhancing the Arab and Muslim Youth Opportunity Fund, first established in 2004. It takes small steps toward improving American popularity in those countries by improving public diplomacy efforts and adding to educational exchange programs. With regards to Saudi Arabia specifically, H.R. 1 requires that the President report periodically on the progress that country makes towards social, political and economic reforms. It would create a private Middle East Foundation to support a range of democracy promotion activities in the region, including a Center for Public Policy. Finally, to improve policy planning, the bill requires that the Secretary of State produce “a country-by-country five-year strategy” for democracy promotion.
While each of these steps represents welcome progress, they are nonetheless only incremental measures – aimed largely at increasing congressional oversight over civil society-building initiatives in the region. Significantly, Democratic leaders decided to deviate from the 2004 Real Security Act, on which H.R. 1 is based, by removing a Marshall Plan-like bank of funds designated for economic and political development initiatives in “the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.” (See section 1211 of S. 3875, the Real Security Act of 2004.) Unfortunately, this first piece of national security legislation passed by the Democratic-led House of Representatives indicates a prioritization of political centrism more than any will to substantively adjust U.S. foreign policy in light of strategic realities.
Following votes on the Democrats’ six signature bills, members and lobbying organizations quickly shifted their attention to budgetary maneuvering. The 109th Congress failed to complete 9 out of 11 appropriations bills for FY07, passing budgets for only the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. Rather than re-open debate on the unfinished bills, Democratic leaders announced late last year they would put forward a single continuing resolution to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year on September 30th, 2007. Most government programs are currently funded by a similar stop-gap measure due to expire February 15th. The House version of the joint funding resolution (H.J. Res. 20), which was debated and passed on January 31 by a vote of 286-140, funded most programs at FY06 levels. However, additional funds were granted for veterans and military health care, Pell grants, science research, and highway projects. The Senate will now take up the funding resolution.
At $31.2 billion, the State Department and other international programs were granted funding in H.J Res. 20 similar to what House and Senate Republicans planned to offer in the appropriations bills they left unfinished last year. While cutting funds from President Bush’s Millennium Challenge Account, which sought to reward countries for making progress along political reforms by granting additional aid, H.J Res. 20 added funds to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria programs favored by Democratic Party activists. Aid for Egypt, a point of contention within both parties, was set at $1.3 billion, $200 million less than was requested by President Bush. The overall total was $2.7 billion less than the President’s request, but $1 billion above FY06.
In contrast to these figures, the supplemental budget amounts alone that are granted the Department of Defense for the war in Iraq – that is, in addition to the regular DoD budget – may ultimately total $163 billion for FY07. Given this disparity in the funding for these two foreign policy tools, one can understand the skepticism with which “winning hearts and minds” language is greeted in the Middle East.
As with H.R. 1, the commitment to continuity represented by this bill may indicate an inclination among House Democrats to pursue political centrism and the rhetoric of fiscal discipline rather than any new foreign policy direction.
In a final development, diplomacy has gained new momentum on Capitol Hill as the Middle East policy tool of choice for dealing with our various woes in the region. On the heels of the Iraq Study Group recommendation that the U.S. embark on a new regional diplomacy initiative, and President Bush’s unceremonious rejection of that approach, Members of Congress from both parties have championed diplomacy as a way to associate themselves more with the bi-partisan center and distance themselves from the President. The first examples of this trend were Senators Bill Nelson (D-FL), John Kerry (D-MA), Chris Dodd (D-CT), and Arlen Specter (R-PA). More recently it has taken on a new form: a spike in calls for renewed American efforts to broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Perhaps even more interesting, Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks (NY-6) and Republican Wayne Gilchrest (MD-1) have formed a new Dialogue Caucus “to actively promote the increase of U.S. diplomatic engagement throughout the Middle East and around the world.”
There is a sense on Capitol Hill that a broad bipartisan consensus exists in favor of drastic change in U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East, including, but not limited to, the tactics used in the war in Iraq. This consensus most clearly embraces a ramping up of diplomacy – both to adapt U.S. alliances to deal with shifting power dynamics in the region and as a necessary component of any efforts at enhancing American legitimacy in the region. Likewise, many recognize that aid can and should be used in far greater quantities in order to leverage American soft power in support of Middle Eastern moderates. But there is a large difference between recognizing the need to shift policy and summoning the political will and energy to bring about that change. Leadership is needed.
It is unclear what democracy promotion policies will be proposed by Congress in the coming session. It appears that the recent attacks on the idea of democracy promotion are mostly motivated by short-term political considerations. In the long term, with support from organizations like POMED and others calling for consistent and principled democracy promotion, a new consensus can emerge.
America's Impact on Middle East Reform
Challenges
to U.S. Democracy Promotion in Morocco: the Credibility
Deficit
by James Liddell
Democracy promotion organizations are increasingly encountering a backlash from the negative perceptions of U.S. policies in the Middle East. Although the Arab public was always skeptical of the Bush Administration's democracy promotion agenda, it is only recently that this skepticism has begun to lead to tangible setbacks. In Morocco in particular, U.S. democracy promotion organizations have been met with widespread suspicion and organized opposition, to the point that they are having difficulty implementing their agendas.
Although U.S. democracy promotion organizations have been active for several years in Morocco, a series of events in the past year have dramatically changed public perceptions of their work. Today, such organizations are inextricably tied with the source of their funding—casting them as the subversive tentacles of Uncle Sam bent on manipulating the internal affairs of Morocco as part of America's "Greater Middle East Project." (Attajdid, March 8, 2006)
The event which shook the political landscape the most in Morocco in 2006 was a series of opinion polls carried out by the International Republican Institute (IRI) which showed the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) winning a plurality of votes in the 2007 parliamentary elections. Set in the background of other regional events, such as the U.S. occupation of Iraq and the Lebanese-Israeli war, the IRI polls were viewed as an unsolicited meddling of the United States in Morocco's internal political affairs, equally unwelcome among the ailing socialist parties and the PJD. IRI's affiliation with the "party of George Bush" is rarely omitted from the incessant disparagement of U.S. funded opinion polling. (La Tribune, January 11, 2007)
Around the same time that the first IRI poll was released, a grant by the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) to the Moroccan independent press was met with widespread resistance and perceived as a deliberate maneuver by the Bush Administration to buy influence with the Moroccan press. As one Moroccan activist proclaimed, the money was suspicious "in the context of a Greater Middle East Project of reforms endorsed by America to reformulate the Arab region in compliance to U.S. norms and interests.” (Attajdid, March 8, 2006)
Six months later, in early November, the leader of the National Syndicate of Moroccan Journalists joined five other NGOs in circulating a petition calling for a formal boycott of all U.S. Embassy activities. As the president of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (one of the groups leading the boycott), Abdelhamid Amine, proclaimed, "How can we trust America's democratic project while it has destroyed two progressive models of democracy in the Arab world: Hamas in Palestine and Lebanon?" (Attajdid, September 13, 2006) Since then, the PJD has declared its own boycott against all U.S. funded democracy promotion organizations. Despite years of working with and benefiting from such assistance, the PJD now routinely advertises its refusal to participate in U.S. funded political party training sessions and consultations.
Clearly, the United States is suffering from a severe credibility deficit which has permeated broad segments of society throughout the Middle East (and the rest of the world for that matter). Moreover, the glaring inconsistencies and perceived unjust nature of U.S. policy in the region means that many democracy promotion organizations sporting the American brand (and, yes, they will always check the label) will at best, be viewed with some degree of skepticism, and at worst, boycotted.
This isn't to say that many political parties and local NGOs don't continuously seek support and benefit from the assistance of U.S. aid organizations. Nor is it to say that these aid organizations aren't making a difference in Morocco. However, to proceed with the debate on democracy promotion without recognizing the growing role that the United States' diminished credibility is playing in impeding reform efforts is folly—especially as Congress is considering passing a major Advance Democracy Act which would inextricably link democracy promotion with U.S. foreign policy.
James Liddell is a program coordinator for POMED currently based in Rabat, where he is helping to plan a POMED conference in Morocco.
Around the Middle East
As discussed in previous newsletters, it is now clear that the administration is decreasing its support for political reform and democratization throughout the Middle East. During Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s recent trip to the region, this retreat was especially apparent in Egypt. A recent New York Times article chronicles events in Egypt preceding Secretary Rice’s arrival, which included “police sodomizing a bus driver with a broomstick”, “police hanging a woman by her knees and wrists from a pole for questioning” and the arrest of a television reporter investigating accusations of police torture of individuals. The reporter was charged with “harming national interests” -- the interests of a nation that is, according to Secretary Rice, “moderate” and “mainstream”.
With such unseemly incidents overwhelming the Egyptian media, you might have expected a forceful reiteration of America’s commitment to democratic principles (or at least a veiled disapproval of the government’s actions). No such luck. Rather, as the Washington Post noted, Secretary Rice emphasized only the close “strategic relationship” between the two countries, a relationship the U.S. “values greatly”.
There have also been intense crackdowns on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt including a scheduled military trial for some members instead of the usual civilian courts. Arabist.net highlights an unusual appeal from the Muslim Brotherhood for U.S. intervention on behalf of democracy in Egypt, showing that America’s image is not completely shattered -- but if it keeps ignoring anti-democratic abuses in its allies, it will lose all credibility on democracy.
Morocco, another U.S. ally, has also been cracking down. Despite overall improvements in freedom of speech in Morocco, recently a magazine editor and reporter were convicted of defamation for publishing jokes about religion and politics, part of an increasingly unpredictable pattern of press freedom restrictions by the Moroccan monarchy.
China in the Middle East
In the January 13th-19th issue, The Economist published an article examining China’s burgeoning influence in the Middle East. While noting China’s friendship with anti-democratic regimes such as Iran, Syria, and Sudan, who China “asks no questions about democracy,” the main conclusion is that China will seek stability and share the same broad objectives as the U.S., given its similar dependence on Middle East oil. However, China’s ambivalence toward democratic reform could play a role in strengthening or weakening America’s resolve in that area.
Blogging for Democracy
A heartening article in the current issue of the Columbia Journalism Review reviews the efforts of a new generation of Arab bloggers, who have discovered a new, powerful medium for encouraging openness and transparency in the Middle East.
A Coup Attempt in Lebanon?
The ongoing protests in Lebanon reached violent new heights on January 24th and 25th, as supporters of Hezbollah and their Shi’a and Christian allies blocked highways, set fires, and fought with government loyalists as they attempted to oust the U.S.-backed government of Fouad Siniora. At least 7 people were killed and 200 wounded in the severely sectarian clashes. The scale of violence caused some observers to declare Lebanon precipitously close to civil war, and caused the Lebanese government to impose a citywide curfew. The New York Times quoted one leader declaring the protests “tantamount to a coup attempt.”
While American Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns characterized the opposition as merely “mobs” attempting to “overturn a democratically elected government,” it is widely accepted that extra-state actors such as Syria, Iran, and the U.S. are deeply involved and view Lebanon as a strategically priceless nation that could significantly alter the balance of power in the region. Though the government threatened stronger military measures, most agree that the Lebanese army is stretched too thin to transform the situation. As the conflagration spread in Lebanon, Prime Minister Siniora attended an aid conference in Paris at which $7.6 billion was pledged by the international community to rebuild Lebanon, stabilize the economy, and strengthen the military. Secretary of State Rice and European leaders reiterated their support for Lebanon’s democratically elected government. About 60% of the $770 million pledged by the U.S. will be directed to military and security aid, with some being withheld contingent on successful economic and political reforms undertaken by the Lebanese government. The U.S. and the international community rightly seek to compete with Hezbollah to reconstruct Lebanon in the wake of the conflict with Israel last year. Analysts cited by the New York Times estimate Iran and Syria provide $40 million of aid a month to Hezbollah.
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