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RADIO 4 CURRENT AFFAIRS ANALYSIS GOODBYE AUTOCRATIC ALLIES TRANSCRIPT OF A RECORDED DOCUMENTARY Presenter: Hugh Miles Producer: Innes Bowen Editor: Nicola Meyrick BBC White City 201 Wood Lane London W12 7TS 020 8752 7279 Broadcast Date: 01.09.05 2030-2100 Repeat Date: 04.09.05 2130-2200 Tape Number: PLN534?05VT1035 Duration: Taking part in order of appearance: Clare Short Former International Development Secretary Gideon Rose Managing Editor of ‘Foreign Affairs’ Reuel Marc Gerecht Former Middle East Director of Project for the New American Century (PNAC) Ashur Shamis Libyan Democratic Activist John Zogby Lebanese American Pollster Kamal al-Helwabi Former Senior Leader of Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Dr Jonathan Spyer Former Adviser in Sharon Government Research Fellow at Global Research In International Affairs Center Ghada Shahbandar English Language Professor, American University, Cairo Dr Kim Howells Minister of State, Foreign Office Sir Harold Walker Former British Ambassador to Baghdad Chairman of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs MILES: Earlier this summer the US Secretary of State went to Cairo where she made an important confession… RICE: For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy here in the Middle East and we achieved neither. Now we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people. MILES: Condoleeza Rice had decided that the time had come for America to stop sticking up for unelected despots in the Arab world. From now on the US wanted democracy. After years of repression, who other than a die-hard Arab autocrat could possibly object to free and fair elections in the Middle East? SHORT: I’m not frightened of democracy, but you can’t have democracy in a region where there’s raging anger at injustice across the region. You just get chaos and violence and surely they know this. MILES: Until she resigned from the government in 2003, it was part of Clare Short’s brief as International Development Secretary to encourage free and fair elections around the world. But democracy wasn’t the top priority for the Middle East. SHORT: I think we had a more realistic appreciation of the problem. I think British policy understood that the Palestinian Israeli conflict was the root of all the instability, was the reason why the people of the Arab world were so angry, was the reason why America propped up all these dictatorships because democratic opinion would be anti-American and anti-Israeli. So I mean that was all sort of understood rather than talked at great length. It seems to me post-Iraq all that truth is no longer talked. I mean you get all this pseudo talk about democracy as though a lack of it is the cause of the problem and getting it is the solution, which is nonsense. ROSE: Americans tend to believe that all good things go together. MILES: Gideon Rose is Managing Editor of the respected US journal Foreign Affairs. ROSE: Americans think that free market capitalism will help make people rich, that it goes well with democracy, that democracy produces peace, and they believe that all their various ideals can be achieved simultaneously. And in the same way, they truly believe that democracy in the Middle East will ultimately produce nice, happy, bourgeois, satisfied regimes which should get along well with a nice, happy, bourgeois, satisfied Israel. MILES: And is that naïve? ROSE: I think it’s a well intentioned naivety. The problem is that it’s a lot more difficult to get there than the administration seems to think, and the crudity of the administration’s approach to achieving its goals has in many respects made the problem worse. MILES: While it’s easy to understand the American public’s optimism about the positive effects of democracy, it’s hard to believe that the top decision-makers in the world’s most powerful country have decided to ditch a longstanding policy on the basis of nothing better than “well intentioned naivety”. So what happened? Although bringing democracy to the Middle East is not a new idea, realpolitik has historically meant that it’s been more of an aspiration than a policy. All that changed when a small group, which was later to wield huge influence in the second Bush Presidency, set up a neo-Conservative think tank called the Project for the New American Century – or PNAC. Former CIA man Reuel Marc Gerecht was PNAC’s Middle East director. GERECHT: There used to be a belief that we would eventually see in the Arab world what we saw in Turkey; that is an enlightened dictatorship that leads to democracy. Well in fact we’ve seen the opposite of that since 1945. The dictatorships have gotten worse, the corrupton has gotten worse. You have not seen liberal autocrats. I think the only way out of this cul-de-sac is through democracy – of allowing people to compete, allowing people to make their case, to let fundamentalists make the case, let others make the case and see which way the people go. I have a great deal of confidence that most Muslims will go in the right direction. Now will there be many aspects of this democratic evolution that are going to be unpleasant? Absolutely. It is entirely possible, for example, that women’s social rights could take a reverse, but as long as women have the right to vote then eventually this system will correct itself to the extent that these various societies want it to. MILES: So besides maybe losing out on some women’s rights, Reuel Marc Gerecht doesn’t seem to think the bump in the road is going to knock his democracy bandwagon off course. If autocracies breed Bin Ladenism, then by his logic, democracy, sooner or later, is going to give birth to the kind of societies that the West can live with. And surely when presented with the same choices Westerners have, Arabs are going to want the same things ... right? A country like Libya, for example, might be a totalitarian state now, but given free and fair elections, what’s to stop it turning into a peaceful, functioning democracy? Ashur Shamis is a Libyan democratic activist who has agitated violently against Gaddafi’s regime, and, just like Reuel Marc Gerecht, he doesn’t think the West has anything to be scared of in an Arab democracy. SHAMIS: I know the Libyan scene, I know the Libyan people. I have been involved with all these groups, Islamic groups, the militant ones as well as the moderate ones. I know them personally. And I know other people in Libya who are not so Islamically inclined and I can see that there is a very significant consensus. They want to be able to live in peace, they want to be able to work and earn money and without interference from the government or from the police or whatever. They want to be secure in their homes, they want to be able to travel. They want to be able to own properties or things and assets and they want to be able to express themselves, associate with whatever they want. This is all you know absent in Libya. This is what the people want. If that is what democracy is, they will say yes we want democracy. MILES: Ashur Shamis certainly paints a comforting picture of what a democratic Libya might look like. Unfortunately for him, Reuel Marc Gerecht’s democracy juggernaut has not arrived in Libya quite yet. In fact, the West is on better terms with Gaddafi’s totalitarian regime than at any time in the past. But Libya is just one country in a big region… what would democracy look like elsewhere? In particular, what would the situation be in the two most important countries in the Middle East – Egypt and Saudi Arabia? Now, the Arab world is notoriously opaque and speculating on its future is tricky at the best of times, but few people are more qualified to try than Lebanese American pollster John Zogby. ZOGBY: If you’re talking about Egypt or Saudi Arabia, you would probably find that the groups that are most organised and most likely to obtain electoral success would be Muslim fundamentalists. MILES: Let’s talk about Egypt, first of all. What do you think free and fair elections might throw up in Egypt if there was a quick election say later this year, a free one? ZOGBY: If it were totally free, it would appear that the Islamic Brotherhood would do extremely well, if not obtain a majority. MILES: And what about Saudi Arabia? Which groups do you think might profit out of democratic elections in Saudi Arabia if they were held tomorrow? ZOGBY: What is clear is that those most closely identified with very, very culturally and spiritually conservative groups, to some degree having elements within who are very militant, especially in their opinions to the West, would probably rise to the forefront if we were talking about just a totally free election. MILES: So you’re going to get the religious conservatism without the support for America? ZOGBY: That’s precisely it. And one of the difficulties that I have in terms of the United States preaching democracy is that in several countries in the Arab world you wish for democracy, you may not like the result. MILES: But even if we think we know who would be elected, we still have little idea about their policies. In Saudi they don’t even have political parties yet, and in Egypt the Islamic or Muslim Brotherhood, which is currently banned, has never laid out a comprehensive election manifesto. In Cairo itself, the regime is so oppressive, it’s difficult for the Muslim Brotherhood to speak openly about their plans for an Islamic Egypt. ATMOS: HUGH MILES MEETING KAMAL AL-HELBAWI MILES: In exile in London, on the other hand, they can say whatever they like. Kamal al-Helbawi used to be a senior leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood before his resignation in 1997. Like many Arab dissidents living in London, he has an unusual double life. He runs an old people’s home in Wembley – but he still likes to keep a close eye on business back in Egypt. I dropped in on Dr. Kamal to see if he could shed any more light for me on what Egypt under the Muslim Brothers might look like. AL-HELBAWI: Corruption will minimise. I don’t say it will come to an end. So corruption will come to a minimum and freedom will increase, including the freedom of women. Production will increase. Maybe consumption will decrease, but health will improve because I know that the Brotherhood, they have a system for treating sick people who are poor and unable to be treated neither in private hospitals or in government hospitals. So they go and ask the well-known doctors and tell them, “We have very serious cases. Can you come with nominal fees and check them?” and they agree. People like to do something good. MILES: Increased freedom, even for women, better health, increased production - Egypt under the Muslim Brothers sounds too good to be true. But it is fair to say that on the few occasions when the Muslim Brothers have had an opportunity to participate in Egypt’s affairs in the past, they have usually acquitted themselves very well. The Brotherhood has a reputation for probity, and has garnered much of its popularity by providing some kind of welfare for the poor. When, for example, an earthquake shook Cairo in 1992, the Muslim Brothers were the first on the scene, far outdoing the state authorities with a large consignment of tents and food aid which they had diverted from a consignment earmarked for Muslims in Bosnia. Their reputation in Egypt was considerably boosted, donations flooded in, and President Mubarak duly froze their bank accounts. But despite reassurances from Dr Kamal that the domestic situation in Egypt would improve under the Muslim Brothers, there were still unanswered questions. Crucially, what would the Muslim Brothers’ policy towards Israel be in the event they found themselves in charge? AL-HELBAWI: The Muslim Brothers will support peaceful coexistence of all religions, but I am sure they will support the liberating of freedom fighters to free their country if no solution was extended to the Palestinians, no just solution. MILES: Would the Muslim Brothers recognise the state of Israel before Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders? AL-HELBAWI: I don’t think so. I don’t think that the Muslim Brotherhood will recognise Israel before withdrawal to 1967 borders. And before the Palestinians themselves are happy with the solution, it’s not fair to ask recognition of Israel before they withdraw and implement the United Nations resolution. MILES: Would Egypt ruled by the Muslim Brothers want to start a nuclear programme? AL-HELBAWI: I consider it a matter of human rights. Why the people in America enjoy that programme and they do not allow others to enjoy it? Why? I don’t know what the Muslim Brothers will do when they come to power, but if America accepts that there is a programme in Israel and do not allow Egypt one, so why? Why do you give rights to yourself which you are not giving to other people? Why? MILES: So an Egypt under the Muslim Brothers might start a nuclear programme, and might cease to recognise Israel in its present incarnation. This would take the whole region back decades to before the Camp David peace accords. It would be an extremely destabilising factor in the region, a terrifying prospect for Israel, and quite alarming for the West. Understandably then, although some Americans like Reuel Marc Gerecht want democracy come what may in the Middle East, the Israelis - and don’t forget they are the ones who are actually going to have to live next to whatever Arab democracy throws up - have taken a much more nuanced view. Dr. Jonathon Spyer, a former adviser in the Sharon government, and a research fellow at an Israeli think tank, the Global Research in International Affairs Centre: SPYER: I think that there’s quite a sharp difference of opinion that exists between the neo-Conservatives in Washington and the views of mainstream Israeli policymakers in this regard. I think that Israel has felt that precisely those circles have been responsible for somewhat downgrading or underestimating the dangers inherent in some of the popular political ideas in the Arab world. From an Israeli point of view, it has to be understood that democratic process in itself is not a panacea, is not going to bring anybody necessarily to a positive conclusion. MILES: It seems certainly the Americans were surprised by the chaos that’s emerged in Iraq, but were Israelis surprised as well? SPYER: I think not at all. I think not at all. I think that mainstream Israeli policymaking expected the Iraq invasion to run into very, very serious complications simply because the kind of rather frankly simplistic thinking that was coming out of Washington at the time of the invasion just didn’t jibe with the regional realities which Israelis are very much aware of. It was plain to Israelis that when you took the lid off Iraq, when you removed the lid of the dictatorship, what you were going to find underneath was not the rather pleasant hope of a united Iraqi people longing for freedom and wishing to emerge into a liberal democracy, but rather a very, very complex mish-mash of ethnic and religious interests which, once permitted to do so, would then together set about sort of defining the nature of a new Iraqi politics. And that’s what’s taking place in Iraq today and that I think is very much in line with Israeli expectations. MILES: So if the Israelis could see that the democratic experiment in Iraq was likely to open a can of ethnic worms, why couldn’t the Americans? Well one reason was because they had confidence that in the post-war scenario, secular groups headed by men like Ahmed Chalabi would come to the fore. After all, though Islamists are undoubtedly a powerful force in the Arab world, they are not the only horse in the Arab democracy derby. Ghada Shahbandar is a secular democracy activist and an English language professor at the American University in Cairo. Maybe a government made up of secular intellectuals like her would provide that elusive winning combination of democracy, stability, and the kind of West- friendly policies which Condoleeza Rice and Reuel Marc Gerecht are both looking for. SHAHBANDAR: Popular sentiment was not for our involvement in the last Gulf War. Many Egyptians, I would say most Egyptians resent American presence in Iraq today and they consider it an occupation. By and large, it’s termed the occupation of Iraq. Many Egyptians find that the United States policy towards Palestine is not very even-handed and our compliance to American wishes regarding Palestine and Iraq are offensive to most Egyptians. MILES: Even secular Egyptians? SHAHBANDAR: Even secular Egyptians … or most secular Egyptians. MILES: You Egyptians have not been inspired by the democratic example in Iraq then? SHAHBANDAR: Is it a democratic example? MILES: They had elections. SHAHBANDAR: (Laughs) No, Egyptians do not think it’s been democratic. It’s under occupation forces. MILES: Although Ghada Shahbandar is dismissive about the example of Iraq, it is a fact that political progress has been made in the Middle East in recent years. Besides the ground- breaking elections in Iraq, there have also been important political developments in a number of other Arab countries, including Islamic strongholds like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Even if secularists and Islamists alike are laughing at the idea that America’s democratising initiative has inspired democracy, PNAC’s Reuel Marc Gerecht thinks otherwise. GERECHT: I think it’s actually gone reasonably well. And I think if you look at what’s gone on in Egypt since the invasion of Iraq, you’ve had a tremendous growth in the discussion about democracy. You can tell it by Hosni Mubarak, who obviously is no friend of democracy. He has I think been taken aback by the internal strength for this inside of Egypt and in fact has tried to co-opt it and co-opt American pressure for it by calling for you know free presidential elections. Now it’s pretty clear that Hosni Mubarak is cheating and is going to cheat on those elections and it will be a real test for American foreign policy, but I think never have we seen a greater discussion of democracy in the Middle East since the invasion of Iraq. Now the groundwork for that, particularly the intellectual spadework for that, existed beforehand, but it has certainly accelerated in an enormous way since the spring of 2003. MILES: The problem for Reuel Marc Gerecht is that even if every Arab government including the Palestinian Authority has now recognised Israel’s right to exist, encouraging democracy in a region where the overwhelming majority of Arabs are still opposed to other Israeli policies – like its occupation of Palestinian land and its maintenance of nuclear weapons - is likely to throw up problems. There is also a real threat to the democratic process from conservative Islam. Once in power, the Islamists might declare that the law of God should take precedence over democracy. The election which brings Islamists to power could be a case of one man, one vote, one time. This is a real conundrum for policy makers. But Reuel Marc Gerecht is not the only one calling for democracy now. Here in Britain, the Prime Minister has been advocating a more dynamic approach to reconstructing the Middle East since at least 1999, when in a speech in Chicago he said spreading our values not only was in Britain’s national interest, it also made us safer. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has recently reinforced these views. I asked Dr Kim Howells, Minister of State at the Foreign Office, whether this was a sign that the Government had embarked on a more ethical foreign policy, less about propping up autocrats and more about spreading democracy? HOWELLS: I think we have actually. I think it’s a policy which has favoured many of the moves towards democracy. I mean and I can give you an example of that. I think everybody’s welcomed the shift towards more open presidential elections in Egypt, for example. MILES: That’d be a welcome change, I’m sure we would like to agree, but surely the risk is that democracy in the Arab Middle East might bring about catastrophic success because these Islamist parties are extremely popular. Don’t we risk seeing a Talibanisation of the Middle East if they win? HOWELLS: No, I don’t think so. I can certainly see that that’s a possibility, that’s a scenario. But I think if one looks at Palestine, for example - the building up of the capacity of a civil state, of a proper economy and proper elections, that really is the only way ahead, I think, for Palestinians. MILES: And if that great new change was Hamas voted in democratically, then would you be prepared to have a dialogue with Hamas? HOWELLS: Well we’d, we’d obviously have to accept what the elected government of Palestine is. MILES: So democracy is paramount and in the event that Hamas came to run Palestine, then you believe that we would have no choice but to have a dialogue with them? Well Hezbollah has already come to power in Lebanon – they have fourteen MPs in Parliament, they have a Lebanese minister. Why don’t we have a dialogue with Hezbollah? HOWELLS: Well I think that if Hezbollah embraces democracy to the full extent that I hope it will – I still hold up you know a good deal of hope for that – then I think we will have to have a relationship with them. I’m an eternal optimist and I hope very much that Hezbollah and Hamas and other organisations will realise that if they’re to have long-term credibility, then they have to become proper democratic parties that do not take part or plan terrorist activities. MILES: You seem to believe that if the Islamists take power democratically, then by being accountable they will somehow become more liberal. But where’s the evidence for this? HOWELLS: They will have to try to make the country work. You know the world has shrunk dramatically in terms of the way in which we view each other’s countries and each other’s societies. And I think people look very carefully now at the way others live, and as that happens so there’s a much more ready exchange of ideas and I believe that it’s inevitable that that will have political consequences. MILES: So you would not be afraid of an Islamist Egypt run by the Muslim Brothers? HOWELLS: Well I might have trepidation, feel a good deal of trepidation about it, but it’s not for me or any other Western observer to say that the Egyptians mustn’t do that. MILES: Kim Howells admits he’s an optimist and from my experience living in Egypt it is hard not to think his optimism might be a bit excessive. In any case Western governments really aren’t doing everything they could to bring about democracy in the Middle East. Neither America nor the EU recognises Hezbollah or Hamas, which whatever you think about them do have democractic mandates. Hosni Mubarak’s regime in Egypt continues to receive America’s third largest annual aid handout and the Saudis remain a close Western strategic ally. Turning ideals into reality is not straightforward in the tricky world of foreign affairs. In Iraq, the United States has been taken by surprise over difficulties of bringing democracy to just one single Arab country. It’s clear that the law of unexpected consequences governs events at least as much as the will of any one nation. And as if to underscore the point, Dr Jonathon Spyer claims for those in Israel like himself who dreaded the prospect of a democratic Iraq, there have come some unexpected benefits too. SPYER: Regardless of what the American intentions were in entering Iraq and of the differences perhaps in perception between the US and Israel, it’s a fact that the removal of Saddam Hussein and the large American military presence in Iraq of course entirely altered the strategic picture facing Israel almost entirely in a positive direction. In other words, the main conventional strategic threat facing Israel prior to April 2003 was the possibility of an Iraqi Syrian alliance attacking Israel probably via Jordan. That was the main conventional threat scenario facing Israeli strategists. That threat has now disappeared. It’s no more. So the invasion regardless of the motivations for it has brought about very much an improved strategic picture regarding Israel’s situation. ROSE: I think that the more you know about Bush foreign policy, the more puzzling it becomes. MILES: Gideon Rose, foreign policy expert, will forgive you if you’re feeling a bit confused. Even to experienced policy watchers, peddling democracy in the Middle East is riddled with problems and contradictions. So does the Bush administration even mean it when it says it wants democracy in the Arab world? ROSE: What has happened is the Bush administration, while maintaining the same rhetoric and while still being dedicated to the same goals in the second term, has nonetheless shifted to a much less ambitious promotion of them and a much less adventurous style. You’re not going to see a preventative war against Iran, you’re not going to see them actively try to topple the Syrian regime. They’re going to limit themselves to the occasional pressure on allies such as Egypt or the occasional withdrawing out of countries such as Saudi Arabia, but they’re not actually going to put any teeth behind the effort, I think. MILES: Do you think Condoleeza Rice really wants to see democracy in the Arab Middle East? ROSE: I think she somewhere inside her does want democracy for the Middle East but, as in the old prayer ‘Oh Lord, make me chaste but not yet’, she might want them to be democratic but not tomorrow. MILES: So behind the rhetoric, the policy today is perhaps more subtle than meets the eye. Having had its fingers burnt in Iraq, the Bush administration may think twice before allowing itself to be led into another democratising adventure. Sir Harold Walker, a former British ambassador to Baghdad and Chairman of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs, thinks British policy today echoes American policy. But I asked him whether he agreed with Gideon Rose’s analysis that America’s policy is actually a lot more nuanced than Condoleeza Rice’s rhetoric might suggest. WALKER: Yes, I do. I think my reading of Condoleeza Rice is that she’s an extremely clever person. Remember she became a professor at the age of twenty-six. Not many people manage that. MILES: But with no Middle Eastern experience. WALKER: With no Middle Eastern experience, but with the experience of the decline and fall of the Soviet Union in her mind, which she thinks – I believe – was caused really by the success of the United States and the United States’ allies in promoting democracy and free markets and the Soviet Union simply got left behind. So she thinks that the promotion of democracy and free markets is the way to go worldwide. MILES: Is that the correct analysis? WALKER: Well my opinion, for what it’s worth, is that it is broadly right, but that of course international affairs are so complicated that you can’t lay down one way of implementing your broad philosophy. And I think to her credit that Condoleeza Rice is a pragmatist compared with the people we have come to call the Neo- Cons in the regime. MILES: So how do we square the circle between calling for democracy on the one hand and denying the results or opposing groups who we don’t agree with? WALKER: Well this is foreign affairs, isn’t it - that there are no pure, simple solutions that will draw you applause all round? We have to be pragmatic and I think Condoleeza Rice is doing a pretty good job here. She’s made it clear that in the case of let’s say Saudi Arabia, she is not going to push to the Nth degree to try and force Saudi Arabia to become democratic because it’s in the US national interest that the United States should be on good terms with Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia is doing its own thing in its own time. So she’s got a doctrine, but she’s going to be pragmatic about implementing it. MILES: The fact is, the issue of democracy in the Middle East is a real policy nasty for Western governments. There have been many examples – from the 1979 revolution in Iran, to the attacks on 9-11 - which have made it abundantly clear that the West lets autocracies fester at its own risk. When Condoleeza Rice calls for democracy now, what she’s really doing is breaking with America’s history of supporting dictatorial and often brutal regimes in many parts of the world. But before democracy can come to the Arab Middle East, there needs to be a change of culture and this is what Western policy makers are hoping to bring about first. They want to create the conditions in which all good things do go together – where Arab countries can be democratic but don’t tear up peace agreements with Israel, cease selling us oil, or take women’s rights back to the 7th Century. While democracy in the Middle East would be a nice idea, it’s neither in America’s interests, nor its power, to deliver. 14