The Middle East Freedom Agenda: An Update

“The major barrier to effective us support for Arab civil society is . . . the hostility of autocratic Arab governments toward any greater independence or activism in the nongovernmental sector.” The Middle East Freedom Agenda: An Update I n a November 6, 2003, speech to the National Endowment for Democracy, President George W. Bush announced the launch of what is now known as the “Freedom Agenda,” an ambitious policy to improve the long-term stability of Arab states and reduce the appeal of extremist ideology by advancing democratic transformation in the region. This new strategy, a response to the attacks of 9-11, represented a major shift in the traditional us foreign policy approach to the Middle East. It has evoked varied reactions, ranging from enthusiasm to ambivalence to outright hostility. Today, a little more than three years on, the Freedom Agenda faces a backlash from critics concerned that Arab democratization might not work out in the United States’ favor. Elections in Iraq, Egypt, and the Palestinian territories in 2005 and 2006 brought success to groups with radical and, in some cases, anti-American views, provoking responses from the us government that called into question America’s commitment to democratization. In Iraq, sectarianism triumphed as Shiite movements, each bolstered by its own armed militia, dominated the parliamentary balloting. In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak’s weakened ruling party lost a significant number of parliamentary seats to candidates allied to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group whose views are inconsistent with pluralist politics and us interests. Most notably, the January 25, 2006, electoral victory in the Palestinian territories by Hamas, an armed Islamist movement that practices terrorism, has led many American observers to suggest that democracy promotion might be a foolhardy course for the United States in a region that is already rife with strategic challenges. It is clear that the administration’s “forward strategy of freedom,” and its flagship program, the Middle East Partnership Initiative ( mepi), have made significant gains since they were announced. Through a large increase in funding over time and improved attention at higher levels of the government, us democracy assistance has managed to make some headway in the Middle East and in Washington, placing freedom closer to the top of the administration’s foreign policy agenda in the region. However, diplomatic efforts to support democratic development have lagged behind us assistance to governments and civil society groups. During the past year or so, in particular, striking discontinuities in us policy have raised questions about the depth and sustainability of Washington’s commitment to democracy promotion. President Bush personally called President Mubarak in the spring of 2005 to voice his expectations for a freer press and for independent monitoring of Egypt’s then-forthcoming presidential and parliamentary elections. In 2005, for the first time, the us embassy in Cairo gave funding to Egyptian nongovernmental organizations (ngos) without Egyptian government approval. Just six months later, however, the State Department’s muted reaction to Mubarak’s intimidation of judges, jailing of protesters, two-year postponement of local elections that were due in April 2006, and renewal of emergency legislation at the end of April 2006 left observers puzzled. Can President Bush’s bold democracy drive in the Middle East be sustained in the face of setbacks such as Mubarak’s backsliding or the Hamas victory in the January 2006 Palestinian elections? Will the Freedom Agenda, described by its authors as a Tamara Cofman Wittes is director of the Arab Democracy and Development Project and a research fellow with the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. Sarah E. Yerkes is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of government at Georgetown University and a former research analyst at the Saban Center. 31 Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article-pdf/106/696/31/389062/curh_106_696_031.pdf by guest on 25 May 2020 Tamara Cofman Wittes and Sarah E. Yerkes 32 • CURRENT HISTORY • January 2007 generational commitment, be successfully institutionalized so it can survive the end of President Bush’s term in office? Made The undersized bandwagon One new us program to advance democratic reform in the Middle East is President Bush’s initiative to build free-trade agreements (ftas) between the United States and every Middle Eastern country over the coming decade. The free-trade initiative is designed to increase trade and investment between the United States and the Middle East. It also seeks to promote the structural economic and governance reforms that free international trade and investment require: for example, transparency in government regulation, protection of intellectual property, and the rule of law to enforce contracts. By 2013, President Bush envisions a regionwide Middle East Free Trade Area (mefta) built on these bilateral agreements. Thus far, ftas have been concluded with Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain, and Oman. Negotiations with the United Arab Emirates began in 2005, and prefta framework agreements exist with many other Arab states. The us government is also assisting Arab states that have not yet joined the World Trade Organization (wto) to reach that goal, as an initial step toward improved trade relations with Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article-pdf/106/696/31/389062/curh_106_696_031.pdf by guest on 25 May 2020 to last? The Bush administration’s new rhetoric and commitment to new programs like mepi and the Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative (bmena) of the Group of Eight (G-8) leading world economies, combined with growing internal pressures for reform, have coaxed a noticeable change in attitude—if not in intentions—out of Arab governments. Indeed, in February 2004, when a us proposal for a G-8–sponsored Middle East reform program was leaked to a newspaper, major Arab leaders such as President Mubarak felt comfortable rejecting the concept out of hand as imperialist and irrelevant. Today, by contrast, virtually every Arab government has formally committed to participate in some aspect of the same G-8 initiative. But big obstacles loom. The immediate challenge for the United States is to persuade Arab governments that its commitment to regional democratization is both sincere and serious. This will require Washington to delineate how it will handle inevitable trade-offs between the long-term project of democracy promotion and shorter-term imperatives such as counterterrorism cooperation, assistance in stabilizing Iraq, and support for the Middle East peace process. Looking ahead, the greatest challenge facing the Freedom Agenda is to build an approach to Middle East democracy promotion that merges diplomacy and assistance in a mutually reinforcing strategy that is deeply rooted in the institutions and daily conduct of us foreign policy. Only when that occurs will the Freedom Agenda have produced a sea change in us foreign policy. In implementing the Freedom Agenda, the us government has deployed multiple foreign policy tools, including the presidential bully pulpit and diplomatic pressure. Some argue that America uses military force to advance democracy promotion, but us policy does not primarily, or even significantly, rely on military force to promote democracy in the Middle East. While the replacement of a brutal dictatorship with a democracy figured in arguments made for the Iraq War, it was never the primary reason. In fact, it was tertiary, ranking below concerns over weapons of mass destruction and Iraqi links to terrorism. The democratization rationale for the Iraq War has been highlighted more in retrospect than it was at the time, because the other two arguments have proved weak. Also, after Saddam Hussein was successfully overthrown, the issue of what successor government the United States would cultivate naturally moved to the fore. Even so, the United States has never signaled an intention to pursue democracy in the Middle East through force of arms. And after the Iraq War, any appetite for such an approach must be even smaller than it may have been before. Inconsistency in the use of democratization tools is to be expected, since the decision to issue a presidential statement or engage in other high-level efforts reflects a complex mix of considerations that extend beyond any specific country or concern. A good example was Vice President Dick Cheney’s visit to the former Soviet Union in early May 2006, during which he harshly criticized Russia’s backsliding on democracy, before—the very next day— warmly embracing the authoritarian government of President Nursultan Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan. Because of this inevitable inconsistency in the use of high-level diplomacy, the ultimate success of America’s democracy promotion effort will rest in large part on the administration’s ability to build effective institutions to advance democracy, institutions that will make sustained efforts regardless of the broader political context, and that will outlast the term of any one president. The Middle East Freedom Agenda • 33 Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article-pdf/106/696/31/389062/curh_106_696_031.pdf by guest on 25 May 2020 the United States. (Among the Arab states, Algeria, with these countries are relatively straightforward Lebanon, and Yemen are still not wto members.) because the trade volumes involved are small and Animating the mefta initiative is the notion the local economies are fairly one-dimensional. that free trade will have benefits for the Middle Negotiations with Bahrain required a mere four East beyond reducing poverty and unemploymonths, and with Oman only seven. Freer trade ment—that it will also help nurture democracy. relations with these states do not, by and large, This belief is rooted in an assumption about the threaten American industries with new competirelationship between economic and political libertion, making congressional approval easier. alization based largely on the experience of the soThe small Persian Gulf states were eager to jump called “Asian Tigers” (such as Taiwan and South on the mefta bandwagon precisely because ftas Korea). The idea is that free-market reforms can do not by and large threaten their domestic power act as tools of democratization because economic relations. Arab regimes with larger, more diverse liberalization, and the economic growth it genereconomies rely on a more complex network of ates, will build an independent middle class that preferential economic relations to support their will then demand secure property rights, due prorule, and worry more about lost jobs and other cess of law, and eventually political rights and freedestabilizing effects of freer trade. doms from their governments. These difficulties point to the limits of mefta However, this assumption about economic as a strategy to promote regional reform: it only reform’s democratizing effect may not hold for the works to support liberalization in those states that oil-rich states of the have already chosen Middle East. In these to embrace it. Where countries, the governToday, foreign service personnel working in Arab that commitment to ment plays a massive liberalizing reform is states are learning the skills practiced in Latin role in the national evident, free trade– America and Central Europe fifteen years ago. economy because it related policy changes can easily gain sizemay have some posiable revenues from tive impact on govsales of state-managed energy resources. This governance. For example, requiring public disclosure ernment-controlled revenue stream allows the of regulatory changes may give labor and enviauthorities to sustain significant social welfare subronmental ngos better information and a chance sidies without taxation. The effect of these oil rents to influence policy. Open bidding for government (and in other cases, strategic rents in the form of contracting may reduce corruption and help small Western military and economic aid) tends to keep businesses to compete against regime-favored busiall economic classes, but especially the white-colness elites. The ftas signed thus far include provilar middle class, dependent on the state, and thus sions on labor standards, government transparency, reduces the likelihood of a South Korean-style midand other issues that might, over time, become usedle-class mobilization for political freedom. ful tools for reformers. Tunisia’s impressive economic growth and If the commitment to liberal reform is not attraction of foreign investment, for example, have already present in Arab regimes, however, then not loosened the grip of one of the region’s most these technical aspects of ftas are unlikely to do effective police states, because private sector actors the job alone. Until the mefta initiative can engage remain dependent on the munificence of the govthe larger economies of the region—and can demernment. Indeed, some regimes in the Middle East onstrate a capacity to increase local employment look to China, not to South Korea, as their model, and help build an independent, export-oriented because the Chinese state has facilitated economic private sector—its impact on regional democratiliberalization and sustained tremendous growth zation is likely to be limited. without meaningfully opening up its politics. Given the complication that oil rents pose to Weak leverage the assumed relationship between economic and In 2004, during the United States’ chairmanship political freedom, it is notable that three of the first of the G-8, the Bush administration proposed the five American fta efforts in the region involved “Partnership for Progress and a Common Future relatively small, oil-producing states: Bahrain, for the Broader Middle East and North Africa”— Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. Negotiations or, to use its blessedly briefer acronym, bmena. 34 • CURRENT HISTORY • January 2007 Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article-pdf/106/696/31/389062/curh_106_696_031.pdf by guest on 25 May 2020 The cornerstone of bmena is the Forum for the accept the imperative of reform to spur economic Future, an annual meeting of governments, busigrowth and social development, they do not share nesses, and civil society groups from the G-8 and Western states’ view of democratic development as the Middle East. The first Forum for the Future a necessary part of the reform package. was held in Rabat, Morocco, in 2004; the second Western governments have now, after two years, in Manama, Bahrain, in 2005; the third in Amman, succeeded in corralling all the Arab governments Jordan, in November 2006. In addition, bmena to show up at the Forum for the Future—but at encompasses several small multilateral projects the price of limiting ngo participation and waterdesigned mainly to assist the development of priing down the agenda to emphasize economic vate enterprise in the Middle East and to promote issues rather than democracy. The host of the 2005 literacy and job training. forum, Bahrain, used executive powers to forbid The bmena initiative cements a consensus among public marches or protests during the meeting. Western states that continued political stagnation The Egyptian government also managed to scuttle in the Arab Middle East threatens the peace and what would have been the forum’s only substantive stability of that region, as well as the security of product: a draft declaration that would have called Western states. The bmena statement of principles on Arab states to allow greater scope of action for clearly articulates that democratic values are unilocal ngos. versal. Moreover, the G-8 agreed that the uniqueEuropean Union states have been slow to conness of local circumstances “must not be exploited tribute to the new bmena economic and literacy to prevent reform”—a clear reference to states, such projects, while the eu itself continues to pursue as Saudi Arabia, that claim that their faith and conbilateral “partnership agreements” with states in servative identity make the region that, once progressive social and again, give short shrift political reform unpalatto advancing political US policy makers will have to make able to their societies. freedoms or the role of trade-offs among democracy promotion The bmena statement civil society in eu-Arab and other strategic goals in the Arab world. of principles describes relations. Russian chairbusiness and civil society manship of the G-8 and groups as “full partners” new security crises in in the work of democratic reform alongside governthe region in 2006 further diminished Western ments. While the bmena initiative notes that resolvattention to the issue of democracy promotion. ing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is “an important Without concerted effort, bmena might well slip element of progress in the region,” it also argues quietly into the dustbin of previous attempts at that “regional conflicts must not be an obstacle for transatlantic cooperation in the Middle East. reforms.” This declaration represented new common ground among the members of the G-8 and Modest resources presented a challenge to which Arab governments, us democracy assistance to the region has despite initial dismissals and denunciations, have increased considerably in recent years. Before felt compelled to respond. September 11, 2001, us government spending on However, while the bmena initiative achieved democracy and governance in the Middle East was transatlantic unity behind the goals of regional minimal, with the State Department’s Bureau of reform, it has not provided much in the way of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (drl) spendcredible mechanisms to realize that commitment. ing only $148,000 on Middle East projects in 2001 Beyond the Forum for the Future and a Democand the us Agency for International Development racy Assistance Dialogue (dad), the “Plan of Sup(usaid) spending $27 million. In 2006, by contrast, port for Reform” only commits the G-8 to some total us government spending on democracy and small-scale economic and social development progovernance in the Middle East topped $200 milgrams, many of which are only tenuously related lion. Even in an era of tight budget constraints, the to democracy promotion. Bush administration has been successful in chanMost fundamentally, the bmena initiative fails to neling new funds toward the Freedom Agenda. wield the economic benefits it lays out as leverage us spending on democracy promotion in the to persuade reluctant Arab regimes of the necessity Middle East is, however, still relatively modest of political reform. While most Arab states readily when compared to similar efforts in previous eras. The Middle East Freedom Agenda • 35 Building partnerships The flagship of the new American approach to the region remains the Middle East Partnership Initiative, which emphasizes the development of a long-term alliance with the peoples of the Middle East rather than with specific ruling regimes. mepi was established to wield budgetary and bureaucratic resources to realign us diplomacy and assistance in the Middle East in the direction of democracy promotion. A key goal of mepi from its inception has been to build partnerships with nongovernmental Middle Eastern groups and local citizens, and to encourage links among reformers across Middle Eastern countries. Inherent in this approach was a judgment that Arab governments had not sufficiently recognized their looming demographic and economic challenges, and had not fully embraced the need for political, economic, and social reform. Instead, the thinking went, they would need to be goaded toward change by a combination of independent us assistance and local grassroots activism. Administered by the State Department, mepi is meant to constitute a major departure from the traditional us focus on government-to-government, large-scale aid programs, and a recognition by the United States that effective economic and social reform has to be accompanied by increased political freedoms. Instead of long-term development projects like those supported by usaid, mepi is designed to provide smaller grants, for programs of two years’ duration or less. mepi, drawing on the priorities laid out by the landmark Arab Human Development Report, works to support Arab public and private efforts at reform in four broad areas: political reform, educational reform, economic reform, and women’s empowerment. Since its inception in 2002, mepi has received close to $400 million in congressionally appropriated funds. mepi grants perform a variety of functions, some of which are not directly related to democracy promotion but to the broader goal of “reform.” For example, mepi helps the trade ministries of the Arab states in the Persian Gulf adapt to their obligations under the wto and other global trading rules. The initiative translates children’s stories into Arabic to build classroom libraries. It brings Arab businesswomen to the United States for internships with major American companies. It trains journalists, judges, and parliamentarians in the roles they could play in a democratic society. Within the State Department’s Bureau of Near East Affairs, and as part of Secretary of State Con- Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article-pdf/106/696/31/389062/curh_106_696_031.pdf by guest on 25 May 2020 For example, in the five years following the end of the cold war, the United States spent $4.3 billion on democracy promotion in the former Soviet states, or $14.60 per capita. That is more than 18 times the 80 cents per capita spent in the Middle East in the five years following 9-11. In the former Soviet bloc, of course, the us government was working to consolidate a democratic transition in newly independent countries whose previous regimes had already collapsed, enabling far swifter and more extensive spending to reform political institutions, build civil society, and conduct competitive elections. In the Middle East, the autocratic regimes still in place erect significant barriers to increased us assistance to local civic groups. Given the obstacles that mepi and other democracy promotion programs still face in spending their funds effectively in this relatively hostile environment, additional funds devoted to Middle East democracy promotion would probably not be well spent at the present time. Rather, the focus of American efforts should be to match diplomacy closely to programs, and to maximize the impact of each dollar spent. Furthermore, bilateral aid programs to Middle Eastern governments should still be revised to reflect the enhanced importance of democracy promotion as a us objective. The largest grant-making agency engaged in democracy assistance to the Middle East is usaid. Its funding for democracy and governance in the region has nearly quadrupled over the past five years, from $27 million in 2001 to $105 million in 2005. Currently, usaid has democracy and governance programs in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Yemen, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. But since the vast majority of us economic assistance in the Middle East and North Africa goes toward Iraq (some $24 billion in 2004–2006), the Iraq account tends to distort the broader democracy assistance picture. In fact, 71 percent of usaid democracy and governance funding over the past five years has gone to Iraq. The governance challenges in Iraq are unique in the Middle East, and are focused as much on reconstruction as on democratization. It is difficult to determine from public information how much of the money allocated to Iraq is spent on democracy assistance (that is, capacity building for civil society, development of political institutions, and elections assistance) and how much is spent on physical or institutional reconstruction of government offices. 36 • CURRENT HISTORY • January 2007 Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article-pdf/106/696/31/389062/curh_106_696_031.pdf by guest on 25 May 2020 doleezza Rice’s “transformational diplomacy” initiaOf course, political liberalization is itself a comtive, mepi has begun to impress on foreign service plex process, and there is something to be said for officers posted in the Middle East the need to incora broad and multifaceted set of approaches to the porate the goals of the Freedom Agenda into their problem. Still, the widely varied nature of mepi work plans, and to think about democracy proactivities could give the impression that the initiamotion as a part of their daily business. For some, tive’s breadth might limit the depth of its impact, this new imperative amounts to a virtual cultural or that it lacks a coherent strategy for achieving the revolution: the Middle East had long been a region goals it has enumerated. It is crucial to assure that a where economic and security imperatives domiclear method emerges from the present mix of pronated American calculations, where privileged Arab grammatic initiatives. officials or royals could meet or deny us requests with a wave of their hands. Today, foreign service Hostile territory personnel working in Arab states are learning Of particular concern for mepi’s future is the the skills practiced in Latin America and Central continued hostile operating environment it faces Europe fifteen years ago—how to maintain coopin the Middle East. There is no consensus in favor erative relations with host governments while raisof democratic change among the ruling Arab elites, ing substantive concerns regarding democracy and and wary regimes resist mepi’s activities in many human rights, and while building contacts with the arenas. Even the best programmatic interventions political opposition. will have limited impact until this hostile landscape Most of m e p i ’s is altered—and support does not mepi’s long-term viago to explicitly bility will hinge on The Freedom Agenda faces a backlash from political activithe United States’ critics concerned that Arab democratization ties. mepi ’s efforts ability to shift the might not work out in the United States’ favor. to advance Middle ground in favor of Eastern reform are political pluralism. broader than just Persuading Arab democracy promotion—both because mepi seeks regimes to expand basic political liberties, revitalize to address multiple sources of frustration within moribund political institutions, and enhance public contemporary Arab societies (not only autocratic participation in governance will require the United governance) and because of mepi’s premise that States to employ tools beyond small-bore democdemocracy emerges gradually out of a social and racy assistance programs. Such programs, however, economic context that should also be prepared. can often serve as the thin end of a wedge built It is worth recalling that this multifaceted from other diplomatic and economic elements. mepi approach to reform has been at the heart of the planners should take into account, in coming years, Bush administration’s efforts from the start, espethe ways in which mepi programs can catalyze this cially at a time when the administration is being necessary us-Arab dialogue on basic political libercriticized for focusing too much on elections and ties and other core issues of democratization. not enough on the context in which they occur. In mepi has some distance to travel before it can fact, most so-called democracy assistance funding be said to have fulfilled its goal of building a new in the Middle East addresses the context, not the alliance with the peoples of the Middle East rather elections—with mixed results so far. than simply with their governments. Overall, Indeed, the variety of approaches mepi takes to from 2002 to 2005, mepi still spent one-third of the challenge of advancing reform is astonishing its money on programs to engage or assist Arab in its breadth. mepi supports programs to enhance government agencies and officials. mepi justifies economic performance, improve the functioning this emphasis by arguing that “It is part of the of governmental institutions, encourage literacy mepi strategy to target reform within government among girls and women, encourage the growth of institutions as well as build the capacity of civil small businesses, provide new materials for cursociety and business to assume their proper roles ricular adoption, advance us-Arab trade, improve in a democratic society.” civic education, promote grassroots advocacy, supCertainly, streamlining sclerotic government port political processes, and encourage engagebureaucracies, reducing the scope for official corment between Arab and Western youth. ruption, and improving the training and profession- The Middle East Freedom Agenda • 37 alism of sitting government officials are worthy goals and improve the prospects for sustainable reform. However, while reforming political institutions and building civil society are both important to democratization, they are distinct efforts, and sometimes involve trade-offs. Too heavy an emphasis on technical assistance to governments undermines credibility among already skeptical Arab liberals and civil society activists who are trying to hold their governments accountable for their promises of reform. Aiding Managing tensions A further challenge for mepi is focusing on programs that will affect the prospects for meaningful, long-term political change, despite constant pressures to fund projects that produce short-term, measurable, or photo-ready results. After technical assistance to governments, the largest share of mepi funding goes to exchange and training programs, mostly of short duration, for individuals. This emphasis reveals a continued concern for the imperative of building quantifiable evidence of mepi’s accomplishments, even if these may prove Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article-pdf/106/696/31/389062/curh_106_696_031.pdf by guest on 25 May 2020 civil society The most crucial area for progress looking forward is expanding the us government’s ability to support local Arab ngos through grants, training, and technical assistance—and this support can only be achieved through energetic American diplomacy. The past year has clearly demonstrated the expanded role of civil society, however informal, in building and sustaining public demands for political change from Bahrain to Beirut. The major barrier to effective us support for Arab civil society is not mepi’s internal capacity, but rather the hostility of autocratic Arab governments toward any greater independence or activism in the nongovernmental sector. The legal environment for nongovernmental groups is quite constrained in most Arab countries, where ngos often require explicit government approval for their establishment, bylaws, boards of directors, and budgets. Where ngos are allowed to exist, they are often barred from political activity, or from accepting foreign funds. us attempts to build up local ngos already have raised the hackles of Arab rulers. A draft declaration on freedom of association caused an uproar among Arab participants at the 2005 Forum for the Future in Bahrain. In May 2006, Bahrain booted out the head of the us-based National Democratic Institute (ndi) office in Manama because of its encouragement of local ngo activism surrounding the planned 2006 parliamentary elections. Egypt has asked both ndi and the us-based International Republican Institute to halt their activities, accusing them of interfering in domestic affairs. To improve the environment for local ngos— and thereby for citizen participation in governance through the formation of interest groups that are neither beholden to the state nor rooted in Islamist movements—the us government should directly address the need for greater freedom of association in Arab society with Arab governments. This will require the United States to employ diplomatic pressure along with democracy assistance programs to open more space for civil society. It is encouraging to note that the Bahraini expulsion of ndi received higher-level and more sustained attention in the State Department than did a Yemeni objection to an ndi program in 2005. Congress has already played a positive role in expanding the space for ngo work in Egypt by requiring a portion of usaid’s funds for Egypt to be spent independently of Egyptian government approval. This congressional mandate enabled, for the first time, American ngos engaged in partybuilding and democracy assistance to establish missions in Egypt. us willingness to challenge the Mubarak regime’s controls on ngo activity also spurred mepi to provide independent funding to a number of Egyptian ngos in 2005—funding that supported indigenous voter education, mediamonitoring, and vote-monitoring efforts during Egypt’s 2005 parliamentary and presidential elections. Congress’s conditioning of aid to Egypt on independent democracy and governance funding was small in scale and narrow in scope, yet it demonstrated concrete payoffs both by increasing the United States’ capacity to influence political change in Egypt and by enhancing the role of Egypt’s citizenry in the country’s political life. This targeted conditionality could be a model for future efforts. Egypt’s ngo law, as flawed as it may be, is vastly superior to others in the region. Without us diplomatic pressure, strategic funding decisions, and support for legal and institutional reforms, freedom of association in the Arab world will remain an unrealized principle and Arab civil society will remain stunted. Similar conditionality on usaid funds might be useful in other countries where significant usaid programs exist; but in Arab states that do not receive us economic assistance, direct diplomatic and other pressure should be brought to bear to expand basic political liberties and the ability of organized citizen groups to operate. 38 • CURRENT HISTORY • January 2007 intelligence, or economic relations over the uncertain and often uncomfortable work of encouraging independent media, fostering new civic groups, or building relations with opposition movements. Facing the dilemma This embassy-level dilemma illustrates the difficulty the United States faces in truly integrating democracy promotion into its Middle East foreign policy. It is possible that Secretary of State Rice’s transformational diplomacy initiative, now in its initial stages, will put in place training and promotion principles that will counteract the existing incentives to prefer short-term payoffs and instead reward embassy staff who focus on democracy promotion and facilitate cooperation across bureaus and agencies. Even so, us policy makers will have to make trade-offs among democracy promotion and other strategic goals in the Arab world—and those decisions are best made consciously and at higher levels. Perhaps the greatest challenge that currently confronts us democracy promotion is ensuring and enforcing policy coherence across the us government. The progress made so far in shifting the calculus of economic development assistance should be built on, and replicated, in the overseas work of other agencies, including the Departments of Justice, Commerce, and Defense. Rigorous attempts at developing and implementing government-wide pro-democracy policies will highlight the places where conflicts exist between democracy promotion and the pursuit of other us interests—and will require these conflicts to be resolved rather than ignored. The Bush administration’s “forward strategy of freedom” has made valuable progress since it was announced in 2003. But the us democracy promotion program in the Middle East faces significant challenges over the next two years if it is to remain a relevant part of us foreign policy into the next administration. President Bush and Secretary Rice constantly note in their speeches that Arab democratization is a long, difficult process that will not produce its fruits during this presidency. If so, the Bush administration would be wise to make sure the seeds it is currently sowing are deeply planted both in Washington and in the Middle East, and cannot easily be uprooted. Only when the Freedom Agenda develops staying power will it acquire the necessary credibility with leaders and reformers in the Arab world to lay the foundation for substan■ tive progress in political freedom. Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article-pdf/106/696/31/389062/curh_106_696_031.pdf by guest on 25 May 2020 short-term in their impact. A one-week training program for women who might one day run for political office is both more visible and less diplomatically problematic than helping fractious local ngos build a joint project that challenges state authority. It is precisely such low-key capacity building, however, that will wear down or break through the many means that Arab regimes have in place to manage and contain the potential impact of local actors. More broadly, the tensions of working simultaneously in cooperative programs with Arab governments and with civil society groups that wish to challenge government authority are real and pervasive. Over time, without concerted effort by us officials and high-level support at the State Department, these tensions could undermine effective us efforts to promote democracy. One issue that has come up repeatedly is whether mepi-funded American implementers should request host-government permission to hold training seminars or conferences on their territory. Such permission is not explicitly necessary, and the request for a formal imprimatur can sometimes complicate, delay, or even block such work. Yet mepi has repeatedly asked its implementing partners to take this step for the sake of preserving smooth bilateral relations. In addition, the bottom-up work of democracy promotion needs top-down support from the Secretary of State and us embassies if these programs are to succeed. As ndi’s difficulties in Bahrain, Egypt, and Yemen have shown, without a strong push from senior us officials, activists on the ground are relatively powerless when confronted by entrenched regimes that feel threatened by the prospect of greater political openness. Although ndi was expelled from Bahrain, high-level Bush administration pressure surrounding its activities produced real gains, notably the legalization of political “societies” in the summer of 2005. For top-down diplomatic efforts to support democracy assistance, ambassadors should be the ones to recognize opportunities for effective intervention and demand State Department attention for these issues. This requires that ambassadors and their staffs be firmly persuaded of program goals and given incentives to implement these programs. However, in most Arab countries, the same us embassy staffs are responsible for front-line management of in-country mepi programs and for maintaining cordial diplomatic relations and pursuing other American foreign policy goals. In this difficult position, us diplomatic staff often choose to prioritize relatively short-term, certain gains in military,