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| Elections Signal the Desire for Islam |
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Simply put, the non-Islamist opposition groups in Arab countries are selling something that voters are just not buying. For the Non-Islamist opposition to adapt and become more palatable to the electorate they need to engage in a shift in their thinking and policies. The biggest draw at the moment in the Arab populace is an anti-American agenda and a comprehensive rejection of the War on Terror. Therefore there is no certainty that even leftist Non-Islamist political organisations will favour a pro-American stance. Additionally Washington could call on non-democratic institutions like the military or the monarchy. It recognizes that they are generally supportive of American policy goals; the military in Turkey and Pakistan, the monarchies in Morocco, Jordan, and the Arabian Peninsula all of these can serve as very useful breaks on the power of elected parliaments.
Yet all these measures are attempts to plug the hole after the dam has burst; small to insignificant measures, they aim to limit the damage of Islamist public opinion that has now reached a tipping point. A more significant attempt has been a subtle shift in the emphasis of values. It no longer it seems that democracy will be the primary rallying call that binds all other “American” values together. A call for liberalism alone instead is on the increase. No change there, you may say. But the change is there, a call for liberalisation devoid of an active call for democracy will not have as an outcome prompt elections where the likely benefactors are Islamist parties. The shift in values appears subtle, but the consequences could be huge. The new diplomacy goes something like this: people regardless of their mores want universal liberal values, social justice and freedom. If people attain a considerable proportion of these values, with or without a return to fully democratic rule, the stability of the region is guaranteed. F. Gregory Gause III expounds this view at the Council of Foreign Relations where he says “while a frank acknowledgment that it favours gradual liberalisation but not quick elections benefiting its enemies would at least be considered refreshingly honest. And there are now other voices quietly attesting to this view, for instance Fareed Zakaria swriting in Newsweek suggests, “The United States should stand for and help promote freedom around the world. But we can do so effectively only if we ally ourselves with the aspirations of the people we are trying to help. For many of them, the great struggle going on in so much of the world today is to end civil strife, corruption, extreme poverty and disease, which destroy not just democracy but society itself”
However calling for liberalisation still poses a dilemma for the Bush Administration, as it is the President who is most associated with the highly public call for democratic change over the past few years. Take Iraq; the only symbol of achievement out of the deteriorating policy on Iraq has been elections in which a vast number of ordinary Iraqis participated. To reverse this public call for democracy as a result of the unintended consequences that have arisen is to remove the final argument for the invasion and continued occupation of Iraq. The success of the Islamist parties has also now renewed their vigour in demanding more electoral reforms and as a result of their success they are now in a better position to seek change. The doors are opening so that, even with or without American investment, the process of representative governments built upon a strong pro-Islamist public opinion is now a matter not of the future but of the present. If the change in American policy from one of democratisation to one of liberalisation is pursued then this also misses the larger picture, that Muslims are increasingly turning back to faith-based paradigms to solve their societal problems. Liberalism with its secular humanist roots and its emphasis of individual sovereignty does not fit into this new Muslim paradigm. The pursuit of a liberal agenda will therefore follow an ever-growing list of inept strategic assumptions that have characterised the discredited War on Terror.
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