adios
06-17-2004, 02:07 PM
Gerald Seib is an excellent columnist who I would consider middle of the road. Here's what I thought was an excellent insight into the Middle East that he wrote yesterday.
Arab Democracy:
The Real Question
Resides in Egypt
June 16, 2004; Page A4
Lots of people in the Bush administration and beyond are worrying whether the president's vision for a new, democratic Middle East will take hold amid the mess in Iraq. And that is certainly something worth fretting about.
Yet far less time and attention are devoted to what may be a more important question: Will a new Bush initiative to promote democracy and liberalization across the Middle East take hold in Egypt, a country that is both the historic center of the Arab world and home of a leader, President Hosni Mubarak, who is America's best Arab friend in the region? If democracy and reform don't flower in Egypt, there's not much chance they will build strong roots in the broader Arab world.
There are troubling as well as encouraging signs. When President Bush invited Mr. Mubarak to attend the G-8 summit meeting in Georgia last week to discuss his initiative along with some other Middle Eastern leaders, Mr. Mubarak politely declined. He was cool to the broad Bush effort when it was announced, saying reforms had to come from within the region, and has kept some distance from it since.
Egyptian officials insist there is no split. Hesham el Nakib, a spokesman for the Egyptian embassy, says Mr. Mubarak declined to come to the G-8 because he had recently visited the U.S. and discussed political change with President Bush. Overall, he said, Egypt favors political reform, and recently held its own international conference on the subject in Alexandria. "This was something we had envisioned 20 years ago," Mr. Nakib says. As for the pace of reform in Egypt, he says, "sometimes it is faster, sometimes not as fast, depending on circumstances."
In any case, the stakes are enormous, for both presidents. At the close of the G-8 meeting last week, Mr. Bush declared flatly that "the spread of freedom throughout the broader Middle East is the imperative of our age."
To those of us who genuinely care about the future of the region -- and who harbor generally good feelings about Mr. Mubarak -- Egypt's attitude is both tantalizing and frustrating. In many ways, Egypt remains the center of the Arab world. With 75 million people, it is home to more than a quarter of the world's Arabs. It is the driver of Arab culture, literature, journalism and academia. Since the 1970s, the Arab world's wallet has been in the Persian Gulf, but its heart has remained in Egypt.
Beyond its regional importance, Egypt also is the Arab country where movement toward real democracy should be easiest. The building blocks are there. Egypt has political parties and a parliament that has existed for more than 80 years in more or less its current form. It has a wild and woolly opposition press and, within limits, open political debate. Women play a significant political role.
Yet in his 23 years in power, Mr. Mubarak has left democracy in Egypt stunted. There are elections for a president and the parliament every six years and will be again next year, but they never really threaten the control of Mr. Mubarak's National Democratic Party. He has never been seriously challenged personally, and in the last election his party won 88% of the parliamentary vote. When an academic, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, campaigned too vociferously for more open elections in Egypt, he was charged with crimes and spent much of two years in jail until he was acquitted.
Though Mr. Mubarak is 76 years old and has ruled for more than two decades, he has never filled the job of vice president, from which he ascended to the presidency. That means there is no obvious successor, raising harrowing thoughts of instability upon his death -- as well a widespread theory in Egypt that what Mr. Mubarak is trying to do is pave the way for his 40-year-old son, Gamal, to take his place. Both Mubaraks deny that. But just this week, an Egyptian court threw out a suit that was designed to force Mr. Mubarak to name a vice president.
So the situation is typically Egyptian: muddled picture, uncertain outcome.
The one thing that is certain is that Americans take Egypt for granted. They do so at their own peril. Mr. Mubarak has done a masterful job of keeping Egypt stable, using carrots and sticks to keep an Islamic-extremist threat at bay. But if he doesn't leave a behind a stronger -- yes, a more democratic -- system, the risk of instability ahead is real and troubling. "Reform" is a word that can, as President Bush hopes, have real meaning in Egypt and, from there, beyond. Hosni Mubarak will decide.
Arab Democracy:
The Real Question
Resides in Egypt
June 16, 2004; Page A4
Lots of people in the Bush administration and beyond are worrying whether the president's vision for a new, democratic Middle East will take hold amid the mess in Iraq. And that is certainly something worth fretting about.
Yet far less time and attention are devoted to what may be a more important question: Will a new Bush initiative to promote democracy and liberalization across the Middle East take hold in Egypt, a country that is both the historic center of the Arab world and home of a leader, President Hosni Mubarak, who is America's best Arab friend in the region? If democracy and reform don't flower in Egypt, there's not much chance they will build strong roots in the broader Arab world.
There are troubling as well as encouraging signs. When President Bush invited Mr. Mubarak to attend the G-8 summit meeting in Georgia last week to discuss his initiative along with some other Middle Eastern leaders, Mr. Mubarak politely declined. He was cool to the broad Bush effort when it was announced, saying reforms had to come from within the region, and has kept some distance from it since.
Egyptian officials insist there is no split. Hesham el Nakib, a spokesman for the Egyptian embassy, says Mr. Mubarak declined to come to the G-8 because he had recently visited the U.S. and discussed political change with President Bush. Overall, he said, Egypt favors political reform, and recently held its own international conference on the subject in Alexandria. "This was something we had envisioned 20 years ago," Mr. Nakib says. As for the pace of reform in Egypt, he says, "sometimes it is faster, sometimes not as fast, depending on circumstances."
In any case, the stakes are enormous, for both presidents. At the close of the G-8 meeting last week, Mr. Bush declared flatly that "the spread of freedom throughout the broader Middle East is the imperative of our age."
To those of us who genuinely care about the future of the region -- and who harbor generally good feelings about Mr. Mubarak -- Egypt's attitude is both tantalizing and frustrating. In many ways, Egypt remains the center of the Arab world. With 75 million people, it is home to more than a quarter of the world's Arabs. It is the driver of Arab culture, literature, journalism and academia. Since the 1970s, the Arab world's wallet has been in the Persian Gulf, but its heart has remained in Egypt.
Beyond its regional importance, Egypt also is the Arab country where movement toward real democracy should be easiest. The building blocks are there. Egypt has political parties and a parliament that has existed for more than 80 years in more or less its current form. It has a wild and woolly opposition press and, within limits, open political debate. Women play a significant political role.
Yet in his 23 years in power, Mr. Mubarak has left democracy in Egypt stunted. There are elections for a president and the parliament every six years and will be again next year, but they never really threaten the control of Mr. Mubarak's National Democratic Party. He has never been seriously challenged personally, and in the last election his party won 88% of the parliamentary vote. When an academic, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, campaigned too vociferously for more open elections in Egypt, he was charged with crimes and spent much of two years in jail until he was acquitted.
Though Mr. Mubarak is 76 years old and has ruled for more than two decades, he has never filled the job of vice president, from which he ascended to the presidency. That means there is no obvious successor, raising harrowing thoughts of instability upon his death -- as well a widespread theory in Egypt that what Mr. Mubarak is trying to do is pave the way for his 40-year-old son, Gamal, to take his place. Both Mubaraks deny that. But just this week, an Egyptian court threw out a suit that was designed to force Mr. Mubarak to name a vice president.
So the situation is typically Egyptian: muddled picture, uncertain outcome.
The one thing that is certain is that Americans take Egypt for granted. They do so at their own peril. Mr. Mubarak has done a masterful job of keeping Egypt stable, using carrots and sticks to keep an Islamic-extremist threat at bay. But if he doesn't leave a behind a stronger -- yes, a more democratic -- system, the risk of instability ahead is real and troubling. "Reform" is a word that can, as President Bush hopes, have real meaning in Egypt and, from there, beyond. Hosni Mubarak will decide.