Settling for Stability: America s Middle East Policy after the Arab Spring

Transcription

1 Settling for Stability: America s Middle East Policy after the Arab Spring Patrick J. Bell Introduction Prior to the onset of the Arab Spring in 2011, many policy experts argued that the United States should support stability in the Middle East over democracy. With periodic attacks by Al Qaeda and other radicalized terrorist organizations, and in light of the sectarian violence Iraq witnessed following the toppling of Saddam Hussein s regime, stability seemed to not only provide familiarity, but also offer a solution better than its most likely alternatives. After the prodemocracy demonstrations began in Tunisia and toppled what had previously seemed to be firmly entrenched authoritarian regimes in a manner of months, much of academia and the policy world was at a loss for an explanation, as can be observed in F. Gregory Gause III s Why Middle East Studies Missed the Arab Spring. 1 Seeing that the support for stability was now unexpectedly aligned against reform and democratization, a major reassessment of the region was required. In turn, policymakers wholeheartedly embraced the Arab Spring. Now, five years later, with much of the region still in turmoil and no more democratic than they were in 2011, it is even more unclear what foreign policy stance the United States should take with regards to promoting stability and democratization in the Middle East. In the five years since the start of the Arab Spring movement, the once, and perhaps unprecedented, optimistic view on the prospects for Middle Eastern democracy have regressed into a familiar state of pessimism. The Arab Spring left little tangible progress in its wake and helped shroud the region with much more uncertainty. While the movement is not entirely dead, 1 (Gause III 2011) 1

2 Tarek Masoud asserts that Arab democracy seems further away today than at any point in the last 25 years. 2 It is from this standpoint, that we will explore the region s prospects for democracy, and assess the options available to policymakers as they attempt to make Arab democracy closer to reality. The purpose of this paper is to help shape an educated discourse on American foreign policy in the Middle East with full awareness of the limitations of the implementation and efficacy of such policies. Prior to 2011, a common argument was that democracy was unachievable in the Middle East and consequently, stability within a country in the region should be the goal provided the interests of the state s sovereign were not greatly at odds with the United States interests in the region. The backwardness of Middle Eastern political development was offered as a justification for the United States to relax its stances on human rights and political participation. These arguments frequently center on underdevelopment, low literacy rates, and the lack of toleration exhibited in Arab culture as explanations for why democracy seemingly cannot set hold in the Arab world. 3 Despite the presence of strong counterfactuals for each of these arguments that show lesser developed states and states with similar cultures achieving democratic stability, they nevertheless are again becoming popular justifications for why stability should be sought and idealism should be sacrificed. Ultimately, the fact that democracy has not taken hold in the region grants some credence to the skeptics of democracy and leaves open room for debate as to whether or not the pursuit of such a style of government is even a worthwhile policy objective. If stability is to be the policy aim, what sacrifices to political participation and human rights are justifiable in its name? 2 (Masoud 2015) 3 (Masoud 2015) 2

3 In order to properly formulate a policy for a region, it is important to understand what is going on in each of the countries of the region. While the specific boundaries of the Middle East are arguable, for the purposes of this paper we will align our borders with those of the State Department s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestinian Territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. With the area defined, we will explore the challenges facing policymakers in the tradeoffs involved in prioritizing stability or democratization by first examining the characteristics of the unstable and stable parts of the region. Instability in the Middle East The Arab Spring and earlier unresolved conflicts in Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Territories have left much of the Middle East in turmoil. Although the Arab Spring s effects reverberated through the region, its biggest impacts were felt in Tunisia, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Egypt, and Bahrain. Like the movement itself, the instability it caused has been difficult to confine to national boundaries and can easily spread into neighboring countries. The biggest threats to the stability of the region lie in Syria, Libya, and Iraq. Syria and Libya are engaged in protracted Civil Wars with no end in sight, while Iraq seemingly cannot recover from the sectarian violence which swept through the country, as its Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish communities cannot give a firm commitment to pluralism. To say that the US policy with regards to Syria, Libya, and Iraq has been flawed is certainly an understatement. The conflicts in these countries have dispersed destabilizing forces throughout the region, and have even contributed to a major rift within the 3

4 European Union. Chief among these forces is the sheer volume of the refugees they have created. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, there are over 4.8 million registered Syrian refugees, with over 2.7 million in Turkey and over 1 million in Lebanon, making it difficult for any country to easily absorb them even in the best of times. 4 Refugees place additional strains on hosting countries and can hinder their own abilities to provide services, such as water, and maintain security within their borders. This is particularly worrisome in Lebanon, where there is not even a 4:1 native to refugee population. 5 To illustrate this point further, by 2007 around 1.5 million Iraqi refugees had fled to Syria, increasing the population density in Syria s already heavily concentrated urban landscapes. 6 The strain placed on Syria s government certainly diminished their capability to meet the needs of its people. 7 Inevitably, this certainly had some role in weakening Bashar al-assad s legitimacy and fueling the rise of his opposition, including ISIS. At the time of this writing, the United Nations is sponsoring peace talks between the Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels, but violence still continues amid Saudi airstrikes. Although this current conflict has been ongoing since Fall 2014, Yemen has not been without conflict since 2011, when protests began calling for the removal of President Ali Abdullah Saleh from power. The conflict creates a destabilizing force on the Arabian Peninsula. The Shia Houthi rebels create fears (not necessarily substantiated) of a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia for influence in the region, and the Saudis are particularly concerned about their own Shia minority. Additionally, the uncertainty 4 (United Nations High Comissioner for Refugees 2016) 5 CIA World factbook. Refugee numbers include Syrian and Palestinian refugees. 6 (Leenders 2008) 7 (Leenders 2008) 4

5 hinders the United States ability to conduct operations against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and threatens the security of the Bab el-mandeb strait, which could significantly affect trade in the region. Egypt has seen several different governments and rulers since Since the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces took power following Hosni Mubarak s resignation in 2011, Mohamed Morsi of the previously banned Muslim Brotherhood was democratically elected in 2012 and removed by a military coup in General Abdel Fattah el-sisi assumed power and has subsequently been elected to the Presidency. The Arab Spring has yielded no real advances toward democracy from the days of Mubarak. In order to maintain power, individual freedoms may have actually decreased under his successors. As one of the most visible examples of protest during the Arab Spring movement and one of the chief mass media influencers in the region, Egypt s struggles and regression may undermine progress in the rest of the region. As it has been for most of the last seven decades, Lebanon remains a powder keg, but it has experienced a period of relative stability for almost a decade. After experiencing their own pro-democracy Cedar Revolution in 2005, Lebanon saw the withdrawal of Syrian soldiers from its borders. It then suffered through the casualties and destruction of 2006 s Israel-Hezbollah War and a civil conflict in 2007 between Fatah-al Islam and the Lebanese Armed Forces. Lebanon has not resolved any of the issues stemming from the disproportionate amount of power the Maronite Christian and Sunni minorities possess within its confessional style of government where power is divided among Lebanon s major religious groups. Lebanon s Syrian refugee population presents a serious challenge to the government and significantly risks reigniting another civil war 5

6 in Lebanon. Given its relationships with neighbors Syria and Israel, Lebanon s stability has been achieved only through a precariously delicate balance of luck and inaction. For many reasons, Israel and the Palestinian Territories are often viewed separately from the rest of the region. A fractious relationship between Fatah and Hamas over leadership within the Palestinian government coupled with the lack of autonomy over its territories, leave Palestine seemingly constantly on the verge of a confrontation between the factions or actions provoking an Israeli security crackdown. The likelihood of municipal elections being held for the first time in 11 years this October shows signs of stability, but could shift the balance of power more strongly in favor of Hamas, thus weakening the influence that the United States has in the region. Furthermore, with a right-wing Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the so-called Third Intifada has been developing and expanding since at least 2014, with no apparent end in sight. The instability in some Middle East countries is itself a destabilizing force in the region. While the struggles in Syria have little in common with the struggles in Yemen, instability has seemed to bolster terrorist organizations, including ISIS. By displacing their citizens and creating environments where there rule of law is not enforced, terrorist organizations such as ISIS are free to operate and gain legitimacy by offering the populace social services and a modicum of stability. It is chiefly for this reason that the United States feels its interests directly threatened by continued instability. Stability in the Middle East Accepting that, at least in the short-run, stability is a better policy goal than instability, policymakers may be better able to shape policy by examining the sources of stability in Middle Eastern countries. Unfortunately, it does not take much insight to 6

7 realize the limitations of this stability. By prioritizing stability in the region, the U.S. accepts significant sacrifices from stable nations with regards to improving human rights and political participation. Stability in the Middle East tends to reside in monarchies. Unlike modern European monarchies, however, sovereigns in Middle Eastern monarchies still wield nearly unlimited power and influence, with only minor checks from other governmental bodies. Jordan, Morocco, and the six members of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates all have monarchies or constitutional monarchies. Scholars have attributed the resilience of the monarchies to cultural heritage, endowments, and rentier wealth. 8 In other words, the strong social hierarchy within traditional Arab society, the vast amounts of wealth available to sovereigns to use towards their own social and political objectives, and the fact that this wealth originates largely from external actors, as opposed to domestic taxpayers, all help perpetuate the monarchs ability to remain in power. Sean Yom points out that although the citizens of most of these countries were just as demanding for reform, the autocracies successfully resisted reforms due to an unprecedented convergence of their policy responses. 9 In response to calls for reform, these countries almost universally developed new forms of repression, deepened sectarian rifts, and largely destroyed what freedom remained within their mass media. 10 Middle 8 (Yom, Collaboration and Community amongst the Arab Monarchies 2016) Yom attributes these claims to Victor Menaldo, The Middle East and North Africa s Resilient Monarchs, Journal of Politics 74, 3 (2012): ; Sean Yom and F. Gregory Gause, Resilient Royals: How Arab Monarchies Hang On, Journal of Democracy 23, 3 (2012): 74-88; and André Bank, Thomas Richter, and Anna Sunik, Long-Term Monarchical Survival in the Middle East: A Configurational Comparison, , Democratization 22, 1 (2015): (Yom, How Middle Easters monarchies survived the Arab Spring 2016) 10 (Yom, How Middle Easters monarchies survived the Arab Spring 2016) 7

8 Eastern monarchies have been a model of stability by taking away freedoms from their populations and further stifling minority voices within their countries. Joining the eight monarchies in relative stability are a diverse group of countries with little in common and many dissimilarities with the rest of the region: Tunisia, Algeria, Israel, and Iran. Tunisia has emerged from the Arab Spring as its lone modest success story. For this reason, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Tom Malinowski looks to Tunisia as an inspiring model for Middle Eastern governance. 11 However, the transferability of this model is frequently discredited due to Tunisia s tiny size and population, and historic and economic ties to Europe. Algeria, perhaps the Middle Eastern country where the Tunisian model could best be applied, was able to avoid the turmoil of the Arab Spring by preemptively offering significant reforms. In February 2011, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika ended Algeria s 19-year-old state of emergency and offered a roadmap for reforms to the constitution and laws about the media, political opposition, and women s rights. 12 This stability, although relatively long-lived, is quite fragile. Despite the quick approval of Bouteflika s reforms and the approval of a new constitution, Algeria has generally subdued opposition by increasing salaries and housing vouchers, while ensuring opposition parties do not spread beyond the confines of their localities. 13 The ability of Algeria s government to continue buying its way out of trouble is not sustainable in a world of low oil and gas prices, however. Furthermore, with wars in neighboring Libya and Mali, Algeria s continued stability is far from guaranteed. 11 (Malinowski 2015) 12 (Zoubir 2016) 13 (Zoubir 2016) 8

9 Despite its tenuous relationship with the United States, Iran represents one of the most stable countries in the region. Its government has withstood many demonstrations since Serving a Persian majority population with a Shia theocracy, the Islamic Republic does not offer much in the form of a model to the rest of the region, other than illustrating that religious authority and popularly elected officials can coexist and share power through, at a minimum, partially-free elections. The above eleven countries can certainly be viewed as successes relative to Syria, Iraq, and Libya, however, their stability does not equate to success on a universal scale. Nearly all of these stable countries have terrible records on human rights and political participation. According to Freedom House, of these eleven countries, eight are Not Free. Tunisia receives the only Free designation, with Morocco and Kuwait marked as Partly Free countries. 14 This unfavorable status should come as no surprise, since the instability experienced in Iraq, Syria, and Libya was preceded by stability under some of the harshest, most authoritarian rulers in modern history. The widespread persecution of religious and ethnic minorities throughout the region, the lack of a free press, the weak or nonexistent voice of political opposition in some countries is often justified as a way to protect the government and maintain stability. What Is To Be Done? The Middle East is more interconnected than ever before. As a result, a unified strategy for the entire region or at least clear policy goals is necessary. Supporting stability in the region implicitly supports governments that retain power in part by stifling 14 (Puddington and Roylance 2016) 9

10 opposition and limiting freedoms. Supporting these governments, either financially or diplomatically, legitimizes them or helps them solidify their domestic power bases. The short-run gain of pursuing stability at the cost of liberty challenges and seriously jeopardizes the idealism which has long dominated American foreign policy objectives. Though it is certainly debatable as to whether or not these short-run gains justify the sacrifices to American idealism, any policy which could have avoided the savagery of the wars in Iraq, Syria, and Libya would certainly not be without its merits. Many, such as F. Gregory Gause, have previously argued that the U.S. should prioritize stability in the region over democracy. 15 This idea must be entertained today. Recognizing that prioritizing stability does not implicitly sanction human rights abuses, this strategy enables Middle Eastern governments to implement reforms at their own pace. The United States is still free to exert diplomatic, information, and economic pressures on governments who reform too slowly. This strategy addresses the reality that instability inhibits the United States ability to influence any government. While the Arab Spring has not blossomed into a region full of promise, it has had some tangible results. Viewing the actions of the governments who were able to maintain stability throughout the Arab Spring and beyond as the actions of monolithic stalwart discredits the serious concessions made by the rulers in Morocco, Jordan, and Algeria to remain in power. All three countries have reformed their constitutions to further limit the monarch s power, provide additional protections from police power, and increase the voice of opposition. 16 While not major, these incremental gains are codified 15 (Gause III 2011) 16 (Masoud 2015) 10

11 proof of progress. They also provide a clear, verifiable standard by which the international community can judge the legitimacy of these governments. In the face of the diplomatic failures in Libya and Syria and the resulting power vacuums which facilitating the rise of and territorial gains by the Islamic State, policymakers would almost certainly not advocate similar revolutions against other authoritarian regimes in the region. In short, the policymaker must accept a gradual advancement towards more limited goals. Conclusion United States foreign policy in the Middle East is certainly difficult to formulate. At its foundation, it must be aligned with the values of the country. Nevertheless, the effects of instability on democratic reform must be acknowledged. This leads to several uncomfortable dilemmas and questions that U.S. policymakers for the region must address: Is supporting stability worth propping up authoritarian rulers and war criminals? Is supporting our allies worth overlooking oppression? How can the United States best exert its influence to achieve results? What are the desired results? Navigating these dilemmas well will be the great test for U.S. foreign policy in the decades to come. 11

12 Bibliography Gause III, F. Gregory "Why Middle East Studies Missed the Arab Spring." Foreign Affairs, July 1. Lacroix, Stéphane "Comparing the Arab Revolts: Is Saudi Arabia Immune?" Journal of Democracy (The Johns Hopkins University Press) 22 (4): Accessed June 29, Leenders, Reinoud "Iraqi Refugees in Syria: causing a spillover of the Iraqi conflict?" Third World Quarterly 29 (8): Malinowski, Tom "The New Tunisian Model of Governance." U.S. Department of State. September 2. Accessed October 18, Masoud, Tarek "Has the Door Closed on Arab Democracy?" Journal of Democracy (The Johns Hopkins University Press) 26 (1): Puddington, Arch, and Tyler Roylance "Anxious Dictators, Wavering Democracies: Global Freedom under Pressure." Freedom House. United Nations High Comissioner for Refugees Syria Regional Refugee Response. September 18. Accessed September 22, Yom, Sean "Collaboration and Community amongst the Arab Monarchies." The Project on Middle East Political Science. Washington, D.C.: Elliott School of International Affairs, July 15. Accessed August 4, Yom, Sean "How Middle Easters monarchies survived the Arab Spring." The Washington Post, July 29, Monkey Cage ed. Accessed August 4, Zoubir, Yahia H "Algieria After the Arab Spring: Algiers Cane Out Ahead But the Good Times Could Be Over." Foreign Affairs, February