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This legislative branch agency works exclusively for Members of Congress, their committees and their staff. This collection includes CRS reports from the mid's through the present--covering a variety of topics from agriculture to foreign policy to welfare. What responsibilities do I have when using this report? Dates and time periods associated with this report. Democracy Promotion Policy in the Middle East: Showing of 31 pages in this report. First, democracy in the region was inconvenient as long as the Cold War and the Arab-Israeli war were on.
Democratization is an unpredictable and destabilizing process. The United States, eager to maintain the balance of power with the Soviet Union and the imbalance of power between Arabs and Israel, was not open to any kind of change in the Middle East. Events have overtaken these realities; geopolitical reasons for preferring authoritarianism over democracy in the Muslim world are valid no more.
Secondly, there was a false assumption in policy circles in Washington that democracy and Islam were incompatible. The president himself eloquently refuted this argument in his May 9 speech. As far as the incompatibility between Islam and democracy is concerned, recent surveys conducted by Pippa Norris of Harvard University and Ron Inglehart of the University of Michigan, 26 and the Pew Research Center have revealed that Muslims overwhelmingly prefer democracy to any other form of government.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, the democratic ideal is quite widely upheld in the Muslim world. Half of the self-proclaimed Islamic states Iran, Malaysia and Pakistan also claim to be democracies. There is nothing in Islam or in Muslim practice that is fundamentally opposed to democracy, justice, freedom, fairness, equality or tolerance. There are a few Muslims who reject democracy because they reject the West, allowing the West to have ownership of this universal value.
The large number of Muslims who come out to vote in the presidential elections in the United States and those Muslims who vote in the hundreds of millions in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, Egypt and elsewhere testify to their comfort with democracy. In the minds of these hundreds of millions of Muslims who practice some form of democracy, there is no dispute between Islam and democracy.
Not only do Muslims value democracy, there is now a growing consensus that Islam and democracy are compatible. The first Islamic state, established by the prophet of Islam, was based on a social contract called the constitution of Medina. The state of Medina was a multicultural and multireligious federation in which Muhammad ruled by the consent of those whom he governed through the processes of shura consultation and ijma consensus building. The constitution of Medina establishes the importance of consent and cooperation for governance.
According to this compact, Muslims and non-Muslims are equal citizens of the Islamic state with identical rights and duties. Communities with different religious orientations enjoy religious autonomy, which essentially is wider in scope than the modern idea of religious freedom.
The constitution of Medina established a pluralistic state, a community of communities. It promised equal security and equality under the law to all. The principles of equality, consensual governance and pluralism are enmeshed in the compact of Medina. It can serve as an excellent model for developing modern Islamic democracies.
This constitutional precedent of the Prophet Muhammad suggests that Islam is not a barrier, but can actually serve as a facilitator and an inspiration for democracy. As far as Israel is concerned, by now it must be abundantly clear that peace is not achievable until there is a Palestinian state and democracy in the region. But, now more than ever, Israel realizes that its security is tied to democracy in the region. Just as for the United States, democracy in the Middle East is a necessity for the national security of Israel.
There are both external and internal barriers to democratization in the Middle East. A reversal of U. If pro-democracy forces in the Middle East get on board with the new U. Bush administration officials have already taken the most important step in the right direction. By acknowledging that past policies have been counterproductive and asserting democratization of the Middle East as a key foreign-policy goal, they have placed themselves in a position where their own success will be measured by the success of democracy in the region.
The administration now faces political risks if it is seen as wavering in its commitments. By acknowledging the link between terrorism and lack of democracy, they run the risk of being seen as not doing enough to fight terrorism if they fail to promote democracy. Now democracy in the Middle East is necessary not only for U.
Pronouncements alone are not enough, however. The administration will have to take several key steps. The biggest challenge that the Bush administration now faces is distrust and lack of credibility in the Muslim world. If fundamental changes are to take place within Muslim societies, then Muslims must be enthusiastic about the prospects for change. This administration needs to build a partnership for change between Muslims and the United States, and for that to happen, Muslims must trust, respect and once again admire the United States.
Without this necessary ingredient of mutual trust and partnership, U.
Shibley Telhami, an important analyst of Middle East politics, says it succinctly:. As recent Pew research data indicates, even citizens of American allies think that they might be attacked by the United States. As long as fear of American aggression and suspicion about who is shaping U.
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The United States is suffering from a crisis of legitimacy in the Muslim world, and overcoming it must be the first priority. There are three things the United States can do to dispel the fear that this is a war on Islam and reduce its credibility gap.
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President Bush must recast his foreign-policy team. A new set of faces in the Pentagon could reassure Muslims and the rest of the world that Washington has indeed instituted a policy change: Blame for much of the growing anti-Americanism in the world can be directly placed on the manner in which the Department of Defense has prosecuted the war on terror.
Easing out those on the preemptive-strike bandwagon will signal to the world that the empire is listening to its provinces. This administration has already made a change in the economic-policy arena. A regime change must also include a realignment of domestic friends. If the White House can distance itself from some of the problematic Evangelical Christians identified earlier, and bring some Arab and Muslim Americans into the front lines of its war on terror, then it might be able to allay the fears that America is out to destroy Islam.
Multilateralism at home and abroad is always legitimizing, and this administration needs to show that it is willing to trust others and work with them. Only then will others trust it and work with it.
Prospects for Muslim Democracy: The Role of U.S. Policy
Finally, the Bush administration must be more balanced in the Palestine-Israel crisis and speed up the process of establishing self-rule in Iraq. A willingness to pressure Israel along with Palestinian leaders will go a long way in improving America's credit rating in the Middle East. A timetable on Iraq's reconstruction and transition to self-rule along with a program for gradual American troop withdrawal will also reduce fear of U. If the United States really seeks to transform the Muslim world, its relationship with that world must change.
In order for this to occur, the United States as well as the Muslim world will have to change. Reform, like charity, begins at home. Before we can precipitate fundamental changes over there, we must begin to institute parallel reforms over here. The Dilemmas Facing U. This can be found at: A Framework for U.
Prospects for Muslim Democracy: The Role of U.S. Policy | Middle East Policy Council
Foreign Policy and Political Islam: A Historical and Political Reassessment , ed. Westview Press, , pp. Also see John Esposito, Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam New York: Oxford University Press, , pp. This report is also available at http: Foreign Policy in the Muslim World: A Barrier to Democracy? Also see The Pew Research Center at: Noah Feldman, After Jihad: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Muqtedar Khan, American Muslims: Amana Publications, , pp.
Prospects for Muslim Democracy: The Role of U. We support the advance of freedom in the Middle East, because it is our founding principle, and because it is in our national interest. The hateful ideology of terrorism is shaped and nurtured and protected by oppressive regimes. Free nations, in contrast, encourage creativity and tolerance and enterprise. And in those free nations, the appeal of extremism withers away.
Free governments do not build weapons of mass destruction for the purpose of mass terror. Over time, the expansion of liberty throughout the world is the best guarantee of security throughout the world. Freedom is the way to peace. Abidullah Jan, a Pakistani Islamist, writes: Pakistan is an example that shows democracy and dictatorships are irrelevant as long as the U.