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How Western governments can build better
policies toward the Middle East
by Chibli Mallat
It is usual for a new US administration to
formulate policy reviews at the outset of its four-year term
when the previous policy seems flawed either because of
ideological reasons, or simply because it does not work. The
process starts as soon as the results come out, though there
was unusual delay this year because of the Florida
controversy. Between the moment the top leaders are
appointed (Cabinet members and leading agencies heads) and
the time their teams are operational, two to three months
pass. Some 6,000 federal positions need to be filled. This
provides a measure of the huge machine that runs the world
from Washington.
From Washington, the Middle East appears dominated by three
trends considered extreme. Hamas runs the show in Palestine,
with Yasser Arafat’s Fatah all but having adopted the full
Islamist agenda of its rivals; Hizbullah determines war and
peace between Lebanon and Israel, and Saddam Hussein has
reemerged as the guide to Arab policy in ways unthought of
for a decade. Regardless of possible nuances here and there,
the Middle East looks to the Bush administration as an
irredentist and dangerous place. Hence the uniqueness of the
current policy review in Washington, which comes against the
most poisoned atmosphere since the end of the Gulf War.
More than for the US, the Middle East means national
interests for Europe: From the latent Kurdish
conflict across the region resulting in boatloads of
refugees setting ashore in southern Europe, to short-range
missiles which can reach European Union member states
seconds after they are launched from across the
Mediterranean. The salvo of some 50 missiles recently fired
by Iran on Iraq offers a warning for all the states in the
region, and a dire reminder to Europe of the armament
involved, particularly with the chemical heads that can be
readily attached to it.
And it happens to be policy review time in Europe as well.
Unlike for America, policy review does not come to Europe
from the change of administration. It results from the
constant work within “an ever closer continent” to
streamline European foreign policy against the former
narrower national agendas.
Decisive for the new trend is the role of Sweden. For the
first time since its access to the European Union, a country
highly committed to human rights is at the helm, and without
the agenda conflicts that old colonial powers carry.
Stockholm has been trying to make its mark inside Europe and
in the region which counts most for clear risks of war.
While there is a long way to go, Europe has never looked so
united for a common foreign policy toward the Middle East.
So it is policy-review time in the two major blocs that
contribute to defining the future of the Middle East, with
little or no input from the region. In the absence of a
concerted effort on a regional level to give some integrated
orientation to that review, it is vital to venture from
within two guidelines and their corollaries and
applications.
Guideline one: Listen to the people of the region. Mideast
embassies in Europe and America are a natural conduit, but
they are not sufficient. Governments lack legitimacy, and
Middle Eastern leaders are mired in double talk. They are
concerned about the perpetuation of their personal rule
before any other matter. So excessive has this concern
become that even self-styled “republican” leaders are
turning dynastic. In such a context, the gap between peoples
and governments has naturally increased, and the voices of
the individual citizens have become further distorted when
it comes to their governments’ speaking for them abroad.
As a corollary, open up to civil society. Do it openly,
determinedly, with no shame. If representatives of civil
society sound political, do not shy away from them. In
Middle Eastern countries, many an individual will say the
truth more readily and should carry more attention
than a deputy or a minister. Do not hesitate to open up to
those segments in civil society whose values you share.
Encourage their networking, support them financially,
structurally, politically. Mostly, do it openly.
Americans should remember that Wilson was a hero of the
Middle East, and Europeans should remember that they owe a
lot of current Europe to Jean Monnet’s “civil society”
network. Middle Easterners deserve no less a frank and open
engagement.
Guideline two: Think principled. America and Europe need to
be attentive to deafening call for change, and support those
calls which square with Western values of freedom and
progress. Any relativity of rights is a smoke screen for
repression. While the expression of universal values might
take a “local” form, encourage local expressions so long
as they remain within the universal frame of rights which
every person in the planet shares. Torture is equally
abhorrent in Saudi Arabia as in Sweden.
True, the Middle East is closely intertwined and hence
particularly complex. Kuwait or Iraq are carefully watched
from Tehran to Morocco. Beirut and Amman closely follow
developments in Damascus, while Amman and Damascus observe
what happens in Iraq. All closely watch and are closely
watched by Israelis. Arcs of crisis are many and carry a
strong regional charge. It is hard sometimes to square
“global” reality with the principle, in which case the
safer bet is to give priority to the principle. In the same
way, policy reviews should not allow any rivalry between
Europe and the United States to spill over in the region; it
would create a false illusion to the local mischief doers of
playing one bloc against the other.
So before the policy review is complete, those who are
carrying it out should submit their exercise to the dual
checklist: 1. Have I listened to the “real voices” in
the Mideast today, beyond the thousand and one official
encounters? Have I given enough time and open support to the
people as the receiving end of their governments’ rule?
2. Have I thought in a principled manner, have I treated the
leaders and the people of the Mideast in the same way as I
would treat my Canadian or French counterparts? Have I
re-organized priorities in the policy review without
sacrificing my principles?
Listen to the people in the region rather than to their
governments. Act on principle. These are the two simple
guidelines suggested. Here are some applications.
1. Encourage change, but make sure that change goes in the
direction of democracy and accountability. Change in Iraq is
on the agenda in Washington, and that may be the best news
for the peoples of Iraq since the end of the Gulf War, but
change for the sake of change is meaningless: A serious
effort must be engaged to bring democracy to Baghdad as the
Allies did in Germany and Italy in World War II, and in
Kosovo and Serbia last year. Listen to the Iraqi opposition,
help it become effective, make sure it is run by moderates
who believe in democracy and human rights. Hold them
accountable as the process of change unfolds and they get
closer to power.
2. Talk and act consistently. The process of accountability,
which must guide the determination to bring the current form
of Iraqi rule to an end, should not stop at the doorstep of
Washington’s nemesis. Accountability tolerates no
exception, including the “allies,” foremost amongst whom
the current prime minister of Israel, condemned in his own
country by a judicial commission for indirect responsibility
in the Sabra and Shatila massacres. Make this also true of
the other privileged ally of Washington, the Egyptian
president who has renewed his term in office for a fourth
time and entered his third decade at the helm; or the leader
of the Palestinian Authority, who makes the world forget on
the account of the intifada that the mandate he received in
the first and last elections of the Palestinian people ever
is decaying.
3. Establish accountability. Warn Egypt against shutting up
its dissidents most recently Saadeddin Ibrahim and Nawal
Saadawi by threatening to diminish the $3 billion in aid
that comes annually to Cairo from Western coffers in
proportion to the repression of non-violent oppositional
leaders. Threaten the PA leaders with refusing to meet them
at an honorable level if one single Palestinian is jailed or
harassed by the Authority. Refuse to give the aggressor of
Sabra and Shatila any different treatment than the one
offered to his Balkan successors in war crimes by Richard
Holbrooke during the Dayton negotiations. Activate an
International Criminal Tribunal for Iraq in the very terms
which presided over the ICT for Yugoslavia and the ICT for
Rwanda. Make sure that the ruler of Libya is brought to
judicial account for Lockerbie, the UTA bombing, and the
disappearance of Musa al-Sadr, Mansur Kekhia, and scores of
Libyan citizens.
4. Help the people say their voice freely, and constrain the
voices of the rulers when they misbehave. Call for elections
and insist they be free. Make sure high-level delegations of
respectable people including Third World leaders of
Mandela’s caliber attend and monitor them.
Project your own democratic beliefs on the region, starting
with your closest allies. You would never accept a Christian
state, let alone a Jewish one for your own people. Think
about ways that would accommodate the Jewish majority’s
fears and concerns with the rights of non-Jews, exactly as
you do for your societies. Tell the Islamists off when they
take up arms and threaten violence, reward them as any other
group when they operate in accordance with human rights:
Congratulate the Hizbullah leaders for a bloodless takeover
of south Lebanon in May 2000, hold them accountable for not
letting the Lebanese state establish full sovereignty as
requested by repeated UN Security Council resolutions.
Remind the rulers in Saudi Arabia that Christians cannot be
barred from practicing their religious rites peacefully
under any reason whatsoever, and that flogging is as
reprehensible in Jeddah as it is in Kabul.
5. Reward in all situations accountability and non-violence,
and denounce bad governance and repression. Help the young
Syrian president help himself, by meeting and encouraging
those who are calling for the country to move out of the
19th century. Openly support him against the old guard who
are pushing the country toward renewed repression, and
anticipate any such move by clear warnings against jailing
liberal dissidents. Congratulate the king of Morocco for the
increase in the constitutionalist dimension of the monarchy,
and the Moroccan prime minister for the most remarkable
shift toward democracy and the care for human rights across
the Middle East in the past decade, but do not give up on
the rights and pleas of the Sahrawis. Explain to the young
king of Jordan and the other absolute monarchs that this is
the model they must follow, or else. Tell the president of
Tunisia that his rule is as unacceptable as that of his
Libyan neighbor.
6. Revive the peace process under the principles of
international law. Get creative. Call for a new Madrid, but
treat the protagonists at arm’s length and force them to
bring their opposition with them.
Again, treat the Israeli prime minister like you treated
Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic in Dayton. Get
creative. Tell all the leaders you would like to see
opposition figures attend some of the negotiating sessions.
The more opposition figures in the halls, the less deference
to the rulers, the more it is possible to exact a measure of
compromise which rejects violence as the privileged means
for change.
Get creative. Make sure that Palestinians in the camps are
represented directly, not vicariously. Arrange for
internationally run elections in these camps. Get creative.
Introduce federalism in the Middle East, now that Europe has
embarked on the federalist path. Project the model seriously
across the region and within the various states: in
Israel-Palestine, Sudan, Iraq and Turkey, even Lebanon and
Saudi Arabia if necessary. Firmly reject any attempt at
secessionism and the emergence of smaller nationalistic or
sectarian entities. Tone down the need for a Palestinian
state to the benefit of an egalitarian Israel-Palestine and
the principle of freedom of movement for all the citizens of
the Middle East, starting with the diaspora Palestinians.
7. Never sacrifice one country for another; each one must be
assessed for its own purposes and under its own dynamic. Do
not sacrifice the call for democracy in Egypt for the
dubious benefit of keeping a “moderate supporter” in the
Arab-Israeli conflict. Do not let up pressure on
democratization in Kuwait for the sake of your confrontation
with the Iraqi dictator. Request Syrian withdrawal from
Lebanon, in accordance with Taif. Honor the overwhelming
demands of the Lebanese people. Meet with their
representatives at a higher level than you meet with their
rulers. Do not woo Damascus to the “diplomatic front”
which is being re-created against the Iraqi government, or
for the sake of a Syrian-Israeli peace by sacrificing
Lebanon to its continued domination.
So listen to the people and act on principle. You cannot go
wrong any more than you went wrong by acting on basics
within your own societies ever since democracy has governed
them. Develop your policy review accordingly, and put your
economic might at the service of the principles and goals
such a review identifies. These principles and applications
are basic and common-sensible. Paradoxically, they are
risk-free.
Chibli Mallat is an international lawyer
and holds the Chair of European Law at St. Joseph’s
University. He wrote this commentary for The Daily Star
DS: 08/06/06
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