A Setback for Democracy

The US-led invasion in Iraq interrupted the Middle East’s gradual movement toward liberalization

An elected Iraqi government is about to take office in Baghdad – the first since the brief democratic experiment that began with direct multiparty parliamentary elections in 1953 and ended with the 1958 anti-royalist military coup. Yet, despite Washington’s belated justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein as a victory for democracy, why is there no sign of joyous celebration among Arabs aspiring for democratic rule? The sad answer is that most Arab intellectuals view the evolution of this elected government in Iraq as giving a bad name to democracy and setting back the cause.
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This state of affairs combined with the recent floating of partitioning Iraq by some American defense experts has provided powerful ammunition to authoritarian Arab regimes resistant to political reform. They warn that the American model of democracy will tear apart national identity and create divisive sectarian and ethnic identities, turning the region into mini-states along the post-Yugoslavia model.

This argument resonates with many Arab intellectuals. They realize that every major Arab country is susceptible to such a carve-up. In Syria, for instance, Sunnis are only two thirds of the population, the rest being Alawi, a sub-sect within Shiite Islam, as well as Druze and Christian. In Egypt, the most homogenous major Arab state, almost 10 percent of the population is Christian. In Saudi Arabia, 8 percent of the population is Shiite, with almost all based in the oil-rich Eastern province and victims of official discrimination.

Also helping the authoritarian and semi-authoritarian Arab regimes is the intense anti-Washington sentiment prevalent throughout the Muslim world due to the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq for reasons that turned out to be false. The regimes have little difficulty in marginalizing the advocates of political liberalization by describing them as allies of the much-hated Bush White House, often branding them as anti-patriotic.

All in all, instead of initiating and aiding a democratic wave in the Arab world, Bush’s invasion of Iraq has inadvertently achieved the opposite result.