The Middle East:Hope or Vain Hope?

Based on an email received from DG:

Today Jackson Diehl deals with the possibility that the "Arab spring" may have run its course.

By now it's almost hard to remember, but Bouazizi at first inspired not popular protests but copycat self-immolations in Algeria and Egypt. Then the contagion altered: A mass secular movement emerged in Tunisia under the banner of liberal democracy, and Egypt's young middle class took up the same cause. U.S.-allied armies in Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain decided one after the other that they would not gun down their own people to preserve the autocratic status quo - and each decision strengthened the principle of nonviolence being pushed by the United States and other outside powers.

Now Gaddafi has altered the virus's nature once again. Thanks to his "Green Book" madness, Libya stood for decades at the margins of Arab politics. But Gaddafi's scorched-earth campaign to save himself has not only stopped and partially reversed the advance of rebel forces on Tripoli during the past two weeks; it has done the same to the broader push for Arab democracy. If he survives, the virus of repressive bloodshed and unyielding autocracy could flow back through the region.

It's disappointing that Diehl tries to tie the growing failures to Qaddafi, but still he's honest enough to acknowledge that not everything is going well in Egypt.

Maybe it already has. Egypt has seen dangerous outbursts of violence the past couple of weeks, including sectarian clashes between Muslims and Christians. Security forces in Yemen have attacked crowds in the capital, Sanaa, with live ammunition twice in the past week, and violent clashes have resumed between security forces and protesters in Bahrain.

Pro-democracy forces outside of Egypt and Tunisia have stalled. Algeria and Morocco have gone quiet. In Saudi Arabia on Friday, a "day of anger" advertised for weeks on Facebook failed to produce a significant turnout. And there has been no sign of rebellion in the Arab country whose dictatorship rivals Gaddafi's for ruthlessness: Syria.

The picture he paints of Egypt is especially bleak.

In Egypt, to be sure, liberal forces remain strong. Though still relatively disorganized, the youth-led movement immortalized in Tahrir Square pushed out the prime minister and cabinet left behind by Hosni Mubarak and ransacked the headquarters of his once-feared secret police. Two credible candidates for president, former Arab League secretary general Amr Moussa and former U.N. nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei, have stepped forward, offering the prospect of genuine democratic competition and an outcome that Egypt's neighbors and allies can live with.

But some Egyptians think the country is dangerously close to unraveling. "We may never get to the presidential election," said one well-informed source I spoke to. The economy, he said, remains stopped; the government may soon run out of cash to pay salaries. Authority of all kinds is crumbling: Factory managers and union leaders are being challenged by their rank and file, and police have largely disappeared from the streets.

On the other hand, yesterday Natan Sharansky wrote why he was encouraged by the "Arab spring."

At first he sounds discouraged ...

Surveying the fall of the dictators, some in the West have reflexively turned to other, already organized structures within the societies shaped by dictatorship: notably, the army or Islamist groups. The unspoken idea is to replicate the old pact but with a different set of players. Once again the goal is stability, rationalized now by the alleged absence of other centers of potential leadership within Arab society and by the "discovery" of moderate elements within some of the region's worst actors.

but ...

There is another option: to see the region's democratic dissidents as our real partners. How many times did I and my fellow dissidents in the Soviet Union hear the refrain: Yes, you are wonderful people - but you have no power, you command no legions. And how deep was the subsequent shock when the impossible happened and the mighty empire, with its legions and its gulag, collapsed. Who could have predicted it?

Actually, many did: those dissidents who dared to express themselves, knowing that theirs were the thoughts and feelings of tens of millions of others straining against the bonds shackling their society. With those silent armies behind them, they confidently predicted the fall of Soviet tyranny.

So he argues:

Back then, we dissidents had no Internet, no CNN. The free world, for its part, had little leverage over Kremlin dictators. Today, communications are easy and instantaneous. Moreover, the Muslim Brotherhood is not yet strong enough to seize control and foreclose on genuine reform. And precisely because of their historical ties with Middle Eastern governments, the United States and the European Union are uniquely well placed to guide that process of reform.

The point of linkage is the massive foreign aid the free world has committed to these lands. By remaining generous, by mobilizing additional donors from oil-rich Arab nations, and by insisting on clear and enforceable conditions, we can help forge the building blocks of a free society: a free press, freedom of religion, the rule of law and civil-society reform. Entrepreneurs can be recruited to address the dire housing conditions in Egypt and elsewhere. International human rights organizations can prove their bona fides by working with local reformers, including trade unions and student and women's groups. Associations like those nurtured by the Internet project Cyberdissidents can be openly strengthened

In short then, Sharansky believes that the West has leverage that can be used to effect change in the Arab world.

Right now, though, it appears that Diehl is correct.

Technorati Tag: Middle East and Arab Spring.