I don’t disagree with either of these arguments per se, but some clarifications are warranted.  Firstly, whenever I see a reference to Iraq in an article about democracy promotion, I become a little queasy (although, Feldman may not be guilty of any crime here).   In Iraq we are nation building.  We are NOT promoting democracy.  While in nation building we try to build institutions from – essentially – ground zero, in democracy promotion, we encourage institutional capacity building and provide skills training so that parliamentarians, for example, can read a budget.  For an example, check out NDI’s Morocco Democracy Online references section, where they have translated manuals on all-things-democracy into Arabic.   

For Feldman’s part, it seems that he believes the Bush administration’s democratic diarrhea.  He writes:

“Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, sometimes sounding suspiciously like an apostate from the democratization cause, argued in a recent speech for the necessity of using realist methods – including short-term alliances with despots – to pursue idealistic goals such as the establishment of more democracy.”

I find this slightly confusing because the only thing that’s not “realist” about Dubbya is his language.  Dubbya never fully embraced the democracy promotion agenda as is evidenced by Pakistan, as Feldman points out.  Feldman also suggests that Gates’ “measured realism” is problematic for the hypocrisies it breeds.  To be sure, I see hypocrisy as a result of the democracy agenda as a problem.  However, at the present moment, it is one of the least of our concerns.  In the Arab world, nothing says hypocrisy like the American war in Iraq and its position on Palestine.  I’ve been told by many an Arab that they respect the US for our penchant for working to obtain the interests of the American people.  They are jealous.  They know that we will not support democracy in Saudi Arabia.  After all, trying to democratize that place – where there is very little organized opposition – would bring about another disaster.

What is interesting about Feldman is that he proposes that we “make no exceptions” for our non-democratic friends.  But pressuring Saudi Arabia publically would be likely to cause more harm than good.  The regime there lacks legitimacy in the eyes of many Saudis and the lack of any federal-level democratic institutions or political parties or NGOs indicates that few Saudis even have the skills to facilitate the representation of public interests. 

This, of course, is very different than the situations in Pakistan and Egypt.  Although I have my doubts about whether we are getting our monies’ worth out of Musharraf and why we don’t give more support to the opposition, I’ll be honest that I’m far from a Pakistan expert.  But it seems that Musharraf is so weak anyway, I’m not sure what good it will do to keep clinging onto him.  I’d take the opposition in a political game over a coup any day. 

In Egypt, Bush has always sided with the regime, and this says more about our feelings toward democracy promotion than, probably, anything else.  That country would be a different place today if we showed even a hint of commitment to the democracy agenda.  From the jailing of oppositionists (leftist and Islamist, many of whom are pro-democracy) to the barring of moderate political parties from participating in elections and the absurd constitutional reforms that was just ratified by about 5 people in a referendum, there is, perhaps, no regime to which we turn a blind eye more frequently than that of Mubarak… which brings me back to Feldman.

“In each of these cases [Pakistan and Egypt], the fear that Islamists would come to power in free elections – as they did in the Palestinian territories – makes the United States’ interest in supporting the status quo understandable.”

If Feldman actually wrote this sentence, then I’m not sure what the meaning of “…make no exceptions…” is.  Is this not the hypocrisy that he warns us about?!  Furthermore, the fear of Islamists is not a valid justification for supporting an autocrat interminably.  Hamas is a militarized social movement.  Because democracy does not tolerate more than a single source legitimate use of force, Hamas’ election was problematic.  Of course, so is the expectation that Palestine become a functioning democratic ‘state’ without set boarders and while it is under siege by another state (regardless of the reasons for the siege). 

Most Islamist organizations that stand to win elections are not armed and do not believe in violence.  They have patiently played the political game even though the rules are often doctored to their detriment.  In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood has suffered from severe repression precisely because it is playing the regime’s game.  Although it has a long history, the Muslim Brotherhood, like any social movement, consists of hardliners and moderates.  But on the whole, moderation has been the trend and this is a virtue that we should encourage.  The Muslim Brotherhood knows that it cannot come to power and force 70 million-plus Egyptians to obey shari’a law.  Islamists recall the Algerian Civil War and fear such an outcome in their own states. 

Feldman’s suggestion of building institutions is what we call democracy promotion and he contradicts his own “no exceptions” approach by making the blunt generalization that fearing Islamists is justified. 

Sadly, perhaps this was a good selection for the New Yorker’s “The Way We Live Now” column.

Of course, democracy promotion has very little to do with forcing anyone to accept our way of life or our way of government. If it were, democracy promotion would be called democracy compulsion and that is not what it is or what it was meant to be. In fact, the above quotation has little to do with democracy promotion and a lot to do with regime change and the U.S.’s experiences in Iraq. But regime change is not democracy promotion, so let’s not help our friends in the Kremlin, other autocrats, and aspiring autocrats by perpetuating a myth that suggests otherwise.

The broader argument embraced by Baker suffers from a similar disease; rebroadcasting Bush’s foolhardy rhetoric. The introduction accepts Bush’s claim that he is a democracy promoter and friend of dissidents, if not a dissident himself. It should not be overlooked that Bush had the chutzpah to make such a claim to Saad Eddin Ibrahim (because Kennebunkport is exactly like an Egyptian prison…). Baker, rather than questioning, jumps on the bandwagon: “If [Ibrahim] needed more evidence, he would soon get it,” citing Bush’s pledge to create a fund to help “embattled human rights defenders.” Baker blames the State Department for not implementing Bush’s words, stating that “not a nickel has been transferred to the fund…” Of course, it’s easy to set up a fund without allocating any new money for it. It would have been helpful if Baker told us the source of this transfer money. After all, how are we to gauge whether Bush’s promise is meaningful? It’s easy to pledge money, but it’s much more difficult to actually “show” the money.

But this is not a story about bureaucracy poisoning a president’s visionary approach to foreign policy. Bureaucracy is bureaucracy and always will be. Most of the evidence proposed by Baker suggests that Bush poisoned his own democracy promotion efforts by championing a cause through rhetoric while pledging very different allegiances through deed. But how can I say such a thing when Bush has talked about democracy promotion a billion times, made it a centerpiece of his foreign policy, created the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), etc. ???

Policy is not just about what you do do, but about what else you do (and ‘forget’ to mention), and what you do not do. As far as democracy promotion goes, one thing that Bush does not do is allow politics to take a back seat to policy. We have seen this with the MCA, which is intended to reward countries that govern well with money for programs that will help them govern well-er. But, the board of the Millennium Challenge Corporation which oversees the Account, makes the final decision as to which countries qualify for funding. While this setup is justifiable, in practice, the criteria that were supposed to determine who gets paid – political openness, rule of law, and corruption – have not mattered very much. How else could countries like Yemen receive MCA money? It’s certainly not through President Saleh’s embrace of democratic values.

Sticking with the theme of what you don’t do and what else you do do, I’ll draw on two statements from Baker’s article to question whether Bush really is a dedicated democracy promoter. According to Baker, Lorne W. Craner of the International Republican Institute has said: “‘I don’t think the bureaucracy was reorganized to follow up on the policy. The architecture has not yet been configured to realize the president’s promise.’” This is a very telling assertion because grand visions take grand mechanisms to carry them out. Go tell me how many people were added to USAID’s staff in the wake of September 11^th. The answer is zero: which is a lot fewer than the amount of additional dollars that USAID was responsible for overseeing as part of its democracy promotion work. If Bush was dedicated to democracy promotion, he would have been eager to create real mechanisms to carry out his policies. Bush did give us MEPI, but he has also politicized nearly all of the major donor organizations and turned the U.S. badge into kryptonite.

The second piece of evidence from the Baker article suggesting that Bush isn’t really all that concerned with democracy comes from Richard A. Boucher, his Assistant Secretary of State. Boucher concedes that democracy promotion is just one element of a broader foreign relations effort: “We have to work on an overall relationship… The issue of democracy is not to be able to denounce people. The issue is to make progress.” Although an obvious statement, should we wonder if Bush is a dissident when he is working on these ‘overall relationships?’ Or is he just a dissident when he is talking to Saad Eddin Ibrahim? Because all this switching hats tends to sully one’s message after a while, and, just perhaps, this could be part of what has caused the “bureaucratic and geopolitical morass” that’s getting in the way of Bush’s real agenda.

In truth, the Bush team relies heavily on realpolitik in foreign policy with a façade of democratic ideological. Policy-wise, this has translated into spurning democratic rights at home and abroad in the name of national security. To be sure, democracy is about balancing rights and individual freedoms with competing values such as national security. But in practice, Bush almost always opts for security over democracy, rendering his dedication to democracy promotion just slightly questionable. Or perhaps Baker can ask Ibrahim and the rest of the world’s dissidents what they think. After all, they might suggest, if Bush were so attached to democracy why has he supported or tacitly supported several coups against democratic leaders? Why is Ayman Nour jailed (for a second time) and his health in question? Why did Laura Bush praise the Mubarak regime a week before it pushed through a sham constitutional referendum to thwart the only viable opposition in the country (and one that was playing by the rules)? Why, as Baker points out, has Bush cut the budget for democracy programs in a number of countries? Why does Dick Cheney prance around the world pledging support for oil-crats (Baker catches this one too)? How about our relationships with regimes such as that in Pakistan which signal to the real dissidents that we prefer the status quo to a democratic regime that doesn’t like us?

Behind Bush’s feigned dedication to democracy promotion is the very real fact, as Boucher notes, that foreign policy requires the use of a variety of tools to get other countries to work towards common goals. Sometimes, unfortunately, this means going against the grain of democracy. Bush, for example prefers to talk about democracy and throw money to whoever will help his “War on Terror” (just ask Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, etc.) So just because you can list a bunch of seemingly good things that the administration has done to support democracy does not mean that an equally sizable list of things that the administration has done (or not done) to undermine democracy and democratic reform. I had the pleasure of listening to a State Department official in Morocco read a list of positives in a staunch monotone that underscored accurately how monotonous and frustrating the argument is that the Bush administration is dedicated to democracy. Bush’s policies and his with-us-or-against-us attitude have marginalized leftists and leftist democrats throughout the Muslim world who would like to be with us, but cannot gain traction on a pro-U.S. platform.

In short, I’m arguing that the Bush administration simply pretends to be ideologically wedded to democracy. However, democratic politics requires compromise, rending ideological obstinacy – even when the ideology is pro-democratic – antithetical to policy making in democratic polities and in international relations. If you need evidence that ideology is not all it’s cracked up to be, just ask any of the major non-violent Islamist political parties in the Middle East, practically all of which have swung to the center in the past 5 years and begun to work with U.S. government funded institutions.

Bush is a fair weather democrat, just like our Islamist counterparts. So why not put on the dissident hat for the next 13 months (but whose counting?) and try to give some meaning to the rhetoric?

The answer, according to Mr. Fattah, is that recent electoral outcomes in Iraq, Palestine, and now Lebanon, that have favored parties opposed to American intervention in the region, are the product of the US trying to have their cake and eat it too.  In each of these recent elections, America was simultaneously supporting both the democratic system and individual candidates or factions, which casts doubt on the US’s true intentions, but more importantly it implies that democracy is only as good as the ideology of those that are ultimately elected and whether that ideology is acceptable to American interests.

In addition to tainting the very idea of democracy with support for individual candidates and parties, American foreign policy in Iraq, and elsewhere, has “embolden[ed]the ruling majority to resist compromises,” thereby undermining the fundamental tendency of democratic government to allow for a give-and-take that results in policies acceptable to everyone but favored by no one.  This is perhaps the most nefarious consequence of US support for specific factions while trying to support democracy more broadly in the Middle East, because it calcifies a set power relationships based on artificial, external supports that undermine the natural moderating tendencies of a democratic system of government.

Ultimately, to be successful in Iraq, to bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East and beyond, and to have any hope of really “winning” the war on terror, the US needs to realize that the potential short-term electoral payoffs that come from supporting a particular set of candidates or parties are far outweighed by the long-term effects of undermining the entire system of democratic institutions.  We need to learn to trust the system that has served us so well to do the same elsewhere.

لاحظ الدكتوران أودنل وشمِتر في كتابهما عن الانتقالات من الحكم المطلق الاستبدادي في أعقاب الحرب العالمية الثانية، أن الحكام الاستبداديون قد عانوا من قلة المصداقية. فافتقر هؤلاء الرؤساء والملوك والزعماء إلى كفاءة “الترويج نفوسهم كحلولِ مشاكلٍ تتعلق بالترتيب السياسي للمستقبل الطويل المدى وكما احسن نماذج ممكنة لمجتمعاتهم.” [1] لم تعد المبررات النفسية مُقنِعةً كما قد كانت في السنوات قبل الحرب وخاصة بالمقارنة مع الحكومات الديمقراطية البرلمانية في أوروبا وأمريكا اللتين قد انتصرا على الألمانيين. مدركين ذلك، قام الحكام الاستبداديون بأن يَعِدون بمستقبلٍ ديمقراطيٍ بل قبل قد يتسلموا بأي شيء من السلطة، من الضرورة أنهم يحاربون من مجتمعاتهم بعض الأفكار الشعبية “المتخلفة” Ùˆ”يحضرون” شعبهم ويحفظون على “الخصوصيات” الثقافية. أُتسم لهذه جهود تغطية الفراغ الديموقراطي الاستبدادي ب”انفصامٍ اديولوجيٍ” وقد أصبحت “كعبَ أخيلِ” الاستبداديين.

من هذه الناحية, ليس المغرب استثناءً. فقد أخذ الملك محمد الخامس يتمسك الخطاب الديمقراطي الليبرالي في وسط القرن العشرين فيما دعا إلى تحقيق “الديمقراطية المتأصلة.” [2] اليوم قد تبنّى الممثلون السياسيون سواء كانوا من الشيوعيين أو الإسلاميين الخطاب الديمقراطي ومنها الدعوات للتعددية وزيادة حقوق الإنسان والانتخابات الحرة والعادلة. ويشير معظم السياسيين ومدافعي الأمر الواقعي إلى حماسة المنظمات غير الحكومية والصحف النشيطة والنظام الانتخابي السليم والاحزاب السياسية الثابتة مبررا موقفهم بأن المغرب “يدمقرط”. ولكنهم يتشوشون إلى الحد الاقصى بين “الليبرالية” Ùˆ”الديمقراطية”. فلا بد أن المغرب قد قابل من خلال السنوات الأخيرة. والديمقراطية, لو كنا نستخدم تعريفا minimal لهذه لكلمة,[3] تتطلب بعض الشروط التي لا يقدر المغرب الحوصل عليها حتى يسيطر الشعب المغربي على مؤسساتها الحكمة كلها. ففي المغرب الحالي يسود الملك على الآدات الحكم سيادةً مطلقةً من خلال الفرع التنفيظي والوزيرات وبمساعدة المخزن, يمكنه أن يلغي التجربة الليبرالية على فكرته. بالإضافة إلى ذلك, يقدم العملية الليبرالية للسلطات بفرص كثيرة لكي “يعقّد” القمع ويغامده.[4] تشرح هذه المقالة الأفقار المقدمة هنا وتبحث عن جذور الورطة التي تواجه المعارضة السياسية والديمقراطيين المغربيين وكيف يمكن لهم أن يخرج من المصيبة.

This is just an intro, more to come إن شاء الله .

[1] O’Donnell, Guillermo and Philippe C. Schmitter. 1986. “Transitions From Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions About Uncertain Democracies.” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press), 15.

[2] King Mohammed V qtd. in Mezran, Karim. 2001. “Negotiating National Identity in North Africa.” International Negotiation 6. p. 157.

[3] للأغراد هذا التقديرنستعمل تعريف الديمقراطية الذي سمي روبرت دال “بوليارخي” ولديها سبعة شروط: 1) مسؤوليون منتخبون, 2) انتخابات حرة وعدلة, 3) حق التصويت الشاملة, 4) الحق لحصول على مقعد سياسي, 5) حرية التعبير, 6) معلومات بديلة, 7) حكم ذاتي لمنظمات.

[4] Jamai Aboubakr, available at: http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/jamai_aboubakr/

The Morocco article highlights the existence of red lines that serve to thwart democratization as well as the makhzen, which, in my own conception, is an elaborate system of rules, procedures, and elites that assist the king to execute the royal agenda. Guilain Denoeux, in an article cited in the Democracy Digest piece, talks of the systematic corruption and implicit prohibition of the term corruption that was still in place by the mid-1990s. In his article Islam and the State, Mohammed Tozy writes: …there appears to be a common desire among the parties to reshape the entire institutional space where politico-reloigious competition takes place. A sort of complicity has arisen between the different actors in order to promote the raison detat and to assure control of the civil society.

All this funny stuff is not random. Rather, its indicative of an informal agreement between king and subjects that establishes appropriate vernacular and decorum for the kingdom’s political actors. This social contract was, in the past, represented in the baya, the traditional oath of allegiance, which dons the king “sacred legitimacy.” Tozy said as much in his definition of this “sacred pact…a place in the hierarchy of norms and political actors, a capacity for a transhistorical symbolism, a standard by which laws are made or undone.” The pervasiveness of this informal sector really depletes the formal political system of legitimate authority. As a result, elected officials cannot govern effectively and the king retains all power – which is why I claim “Morocco’s not Democratizing.”

Despite this talk of “sacred authority,” its important not to give the king too much credit for his role as Amir al-Mouminin (Commander of the Faithful). Mohammed VI is hardly an alim (religious scholar), and everone knows it. Abdeslam Maghraoui has convinced me that the baya has become little more than a ceremony bent on convincing the masses that important people bow down to the king so they should too. The king does not possess experiential capital; just the illusion of legitimacy.

The Democratic Digest article suggests that the monarch’s “privileged religious status also acts as a red line against the contagion of radical Islam.” But I’m not so sure that this is the case. Radical Islam is pervasive and the lack of Islamist extremism is, I think, more due to the work of the security services (translation: repression), the existence of opportunities for extremism abroad, and the inclusion of Islamists into the political system.

None of these steps are long term solutions to Islamist extremism; they’re really just buying time. The first two points are fairly self-explanatory, so I’ll once again (see my last post) raise the participation issue. Bringing Islamists into the political system is a good thing, please don’t get me wrong. But electoral politics in autocratic polities do not allow for the full scale of moderating procedures and habits present in democratic systems. If Islamists cannot obtain their goals via the political system, then they are eventually going to decide that participation ain’t worth it. Furthermore, if the supporters of the PJD, the “Islamist” party, do not perceive that they are gaining anything, they will feel marginalized and, most likely, shift their support to more subversive elements. Ill sketch this thought out in more detail in sha’ allah, but that’s just a little food for thought until I finish my finals.

As I procrastinated tonight and avoided working on my final papers, I stumbled across this three piece Washington Post article series about democracy promotion from 2005. I originally missed this piece, so as they say on NBC during reruns “If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you!”

This piece, a Pulitzer Prize winner in 2006, gives a pretty good introduction to the field of democracy promotion. Granted democracy promotion is a niche field, but I get a blank stare every time I tell my family, friends and acquaintances what I am studying and what I want to do with my life. Democracy promotion really is a misunderstood and under appreciated part of US foreign policy.

While there are some nit-picky issues I would raise about the article, I think it does a good job of providing both a micro and macro view of the field. The article provides a glimpse into the daily life, mindset and experiences of those working on the ground, especially in countries that are at times hostile to the idea of democracy. Furthermore, Finkel’s piece, perhaps inadvertently, gives some context to some important issues that define the field:

• Universalism vs Preconditions – does democracy require some set of preconditions (cultural, economic, or otherwise), or is its appeal universal?
• Implementers practical idealism: “If this were the 19th century, what I would be doing is missionary work for Christianity. Now I’m a missionary for democracy, and the only way to do that is with a little humility. Be not so damn sure I’m right. Because if I’m wrong, I’m going to be on an airplane out of this country, and they’re going to have to clean up the mess.” I think this quote says it all about the prationers that work to struggle to implement and live the ideals that they feel to their core while placing them within a situational context.
• The fickle (or manipulative) nature of “democratizing” autocracies. These leaders walk a fine line of preserving the status quo and relieving enough pressure to ensure their their survival. Anyone who generally believes that these regimes are ossified or unintelligent seriously under estimate their capacity to adapt and measure society.
• A little has the potential to go a long way – $300,000 for six months of working with local leaders who seek greater input (apparently democratic say) in the governing of their country can provide a needed boost to their cause. Madrid is quoted as saying, “It was our highest-risk program, and it failed. In terms of what we were funded for, it failed.” I doubt that it really did. The US (obviously not counting the other countries and organizations that spend on democracy promotion) spends over $1 billion a year to promote democracy abroad, and this program barely registered on the budget scale. However, it likely did more good than the other USAID DG programs in Yemen focusing on the parliament and other government institutions.

• Center vs Periphery – There are obvious tensions between the practitioners in the field and the bureaucrats / staff in Washington DC. The public policy process in any country is complex and distorting, and this article gives the reader an insight into how knowledgeable personnel on the ground provide recommendations for programing that are often ignored and overlooked. It also shows that sometimes practitioners engaged in their immediate context miss or avoid the broader structural framework that their programs take place.

• Who can we work with? While the US democracy promotion efforts have not always been waged in friendly territory, much of the post cold war democracy promotion efforts have taken place in countries that have welcomed US aid, either democracy or otherwise. As energy prices have risen and US stature in the world has dropped, many autocratic regimes have capitalized on these facts to assert their strength. This resurgence of autocratic resistance forces us to deal with the Gordian issue of with whom democracy promoters can work. Do we always have to be invited into a country (like most of our program are now), or should we pursue programs that may strengthen democracy but are not welcomed by non-democratic regimes.

• Speaking truth to our friends – An important issue that the US needs to sort in in the coming years is how we deal with our friendly “autocrats” in a post-9/11 world. So far our experience has been defined by the extremes. We now realize that we can not allow large swaths of the world to be dominated by corrupt strongmen. These areas, especially in the Middle East, provide fertile ground for al-Qaeda and their ilk to foment disgust and rage against our acquiescence of the convenient regimes that served our short-term interests. However, we also realize that democracy imposed by the “gun” is incredibly difficult to implement. How do we work with those states whose democratization is in our long-term interests while their cooperation is necessary for our short-term interest? Russia comes to mind because of their obvious backsliding and important international position, but Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, and other MENA states serve as more relevant, if not more obdurate, examples in terms of the article. While the Bush administration early on sought to force the issue with these states, they have backed off as our position in Iraq has become less tenable.

Democracy promotion tends to exist in the line-items of budgets, the minutia of foreign policy and the footnotes of history. However, this doesn’t detract from the important role it plays both for international security and humanity. As the prominent power, the US needs to establish a democracy policy that is as nuanced as the debate which shaped US Cold War foreign policy.

To apply, please send a letter of interest and resume to: Human Resources–RA-AP, 1779 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington DC 20036. Fax: 202-939-2377. E-mail: HR@CarnegieEndowment.org. EOE.

The first sentence refers to “… North Africa’s secular social veneer…” I’m not sure what this means. Secular? In North Africa? Even many of the leftists are not “secular” in North Africa. “Secular” is a curse to most North Africans. While there is a “secular elite”, this phrase only describes a very small fraction of the population. Perhaps particular wealthy districts of wealthy cities have a “secular social veneer”, but this is not an accurate description of the reality across North Africa.

Shortly thereafter, Smith states:

“Every country on the continent’s northern rim, from Egypt to Morocco, has outlawed extreme Islamist parties that would be likely to win large parliamentary blocs — if not majorities — were they allowed to participate in free and fair national elections. (Libya bans political parties altogether.)”

Lets take Egypt and Morocco. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is clearly the organization he is referring to here, but the MB is not a “party”, nor is it “extreme”. It is a social movement and it is nonviolent and has been for decades. Indeed, one can be “extreme” without being violent, but is Smith implying that since “extreme Islamist parties… would be likely to win large parliamentary blocs… were they allowed to participate…” that the North Africans who – in these non-existent “free and fair national elections” – would vote for these winning “parties” are all “[extremists]”? Your argument is on shaky ground when you are suggesting that large swaths of people are extreme; perhaps there is something missing from this analysis.

Al ‘Adl Wal Ihsan, the “party” to which Smith implicitly refers in Morocco, has never run any candidates. To be sure, it does have some pretty unusual views. Al ‘Adl is rooted in the Sufi tradition of Islam and Sheikh Yassine, its leader, has ‘foreboding’ visions on occasion that insinuate that he will become the ruler of Morocco. At any rate, Al ‘Adl is not your typical “extremist” organization and characterizing it this way, along with your other revivalist Islamic organizations, is misleading. Al ‘Adl has always been nonviolent and professes to believe in democracy. Whether this is actually the case, it refuses to participate in the Moroccan political system because it sees the Moroccan elections as a façade that legitimizes the regime – can’t exactly disagree with ‘em on that one. I don’t have a good grasp of Sufism, but you can see why Smith’s statement is misleading.

In fact, this statement is “extreme”-ly misleading. I get the sense that the author thinks it’s ok to outlaw “extreme” Islamist parties when they are going to win elections (for the record, Al ‘Adl is not outlawed because it’s going to win elections – it doesn’t respect Morocco’s “sacred institutions,” which include the king). If this characterization of Smith’s perspective is accurate, the question becomes: when is it acceptable to outlaw organizations that are nonviolent simply because they have some socially conservative views? Both the Egyptian and Moroccan regimes resort to violence, arbitrary arrests, and other human rights abuses at will; but the Islamists are “extreme”. How many decades do you have to be nonviolent before you are no longer “extreme”? When I think of “extreme” I think of bin Laden, not the Muslim Brotherhood. If I’m not alone on this, then I think I’m justified in saying that this article perpetuates the myth that all Islamists are extremists.

My final knit-picky critique (I have plenty more, but you get the point) focuses on Smith’s very next sentence: “Each of those countries (again with the exception of Libya, where the small society is tightly controlled) has suffered terrorist attacks from local groups that have emerged from the repressed extremists.”

Wow. Smith implies that the groups that have committed terrorist attacks are related to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Al ‘Adl (“the repressed extremists”). This is false. I’m not sure I’ve heard of a single group affiliated with either of these organizations committing a terrorist attack in a very, very long time. As long as we’re grouping all Islamists together now, I wonder if Craig S. Smith is related to Steve Smith the football player and Mr. Smith, my gym teacher in middle school (one’s black and one’s white but interracial marriage is really on the rise!).

One final statement I have to critique prior to getting to the point. Referencing the North African youth, Smith states:

“The Islamist movement easily influences those people. The Internet and Arabic satellite TV stations from the Middle East have filled the void left by bland state-run media outlets at home, helping spread fundamentalism and a militant political message.”

Ma sha’ Allah!! First, I’m not quite sure which Arabic satellite stations Smith is referring to… presumably… Al-Jazeera? Probably, but since he uses the plural noun “stations” I assume that there’s at least one more… does he mean Al-Arabiya? Clearly, Smith has not watched either of these channels before. Al-Arabiya is considered pro-American in the Middle East, and it’s certainly not “militant”. If Al-Arabiya is “fundamentalist”, I guess we’re all fundamentalists.

Al-Jazeera’s commentators and guests might make anti-American arguments with frequency, but Al-Jazeera is hardly “fundamentalist”. Can any of the New York Times editors tell me what a “fundamentalist” is? I’m not even sure what having a “militant political message” implies from a person (Smith) who has displayed such poor judgment of character in the past.

The state-run media are not simply “bland”. They are propaganda outlets. In most Arab countries (in Egypt and Jordan, for example, which are our allies), the state-run media are oftentimes far more “militant” than Al-Jazeera. And even if Al-Jazeera airs some “militant” views, it broadcasts leftist and pro-American voices as well – including those in the Bush Administration. Of course, the administration’s policy for a long time was to ignore the Arabic satellite media, but it eventually backtracked on this policy just like it backtracked on democracy promotion.

Last point on the media issue. Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya should not be overlooked for the role they play in providing a forum for a plurality of perspectives. When states controlled the media there were no outlets for the expression of dissent. Al-Jazeera has call-in shows and heated debates that do not just criticize the US, but Arab regimes too. This was unthinkable in the late 1990s. The ascent of satellite television in the Middle East is one of the more positive developments over the past decade.

Now that I’m all riled up I’ll get to the meat of my post (if you’ve made it this far, send me an email so I feel better about having stayed up all night to start and almost finish this). Smith ends with quotations of Entelis and Zartman on the merits of participation. Entelis argues that Islamists should be included in politics, while Zartman suggests that hardliners within the winning Islamist party would take over and, perhaps, lead to something like Russia after the Czar fell. Neither of these experts are incorrect per se, but the question is problematic. Algeria’s not my specialty, and I could talk about Egypt, but I’ll pick on Morocco because Westerners who don’t study the region tend to think that it is ‘on the path to democracy’.

We can debate all day whether the inclusion-moderation hypothesis has any value when applied to electoral politics in autocratic systems. I’d venture to say that inclusion does not necessarily result in ideological moderation, but it oftentimes leads to strategically calculated decision making. Once political actors perceive participation to be in their best interest, they join the game when permitted. Many of the founders of the Moroccan PJD (the only Islamist political party in the country and the part that is favored to win the next elections) had been trying to enter politics as members of an unrecognized organization since 1983. They were not admitted until the late 1990s. For participation to remain worthwhile it must be incentivized. In democracies, the incentive is the opportunity to rule. Even when a party loses, it does not buck the system because it knows that it will have the opportunity to rule at the next round of elections.

In autocracies, political parties are often lured in with negative and positive incentives. Negative incentives include knowing that they will experience less repression as a legal, participatory organization. Positive incentives, such as the opportunity to govern, are only partial in autocratic countries because there are constraints placed on the amount of authority that can be acquired via the electoral process. In many autocracies, like the kingdoms of Morocco and Egypt (you are what you are, and you is what you is), a country’s leader may be unelected altogether.

Morocco lacks positive incentives for participation (so does Egypt). Governing is not a possible outcome of elections – even for the winning party – because the parliament is endowed with very little authority. Several PJD officials have stated accurately that winning the 2007 elections, which the PJD is likely to do, is a curse. If the PJD is victorious, it will probably remain in the opposition while allowing the second, third, and possibly fourth place parties to join the government. Without authority, the “ruling” party can do little more than share blame for Morocco’s abysmal living conditions, rampant corruption, high unemployment and underemployment, etc… Because they cannot govern, Islamists who choose to participate cannot alter the status quo. So why should permitting Islamists to participate lead them to moderate their positions? Even if these Islamists do participate, why would people continue to vote for them if they don’t experience tangible changes in their living conditions??

Including Islamists in this type political system serves multiple of the regime’s interests, but in the long run, it will not cut down on terrorism. Whether there are Islamists participating or not, the needs of the population will not be met as long as the status quo persists. At some point, the real extremists will recover their capacity to recruit people who may, at one point, have been swayed by the chance to seek their interests through participating in politics. The youth in the PJD and its social movement, the MUR, do tend to be more extreme than the middle generation – the organizations’ leaders at present. Don’t blame Al-Jazeera for this; blame the lack of economic opportunity, lack of legitimate political opportunity, the massive wealth gap, a poor education system, and a multitude of other problems most of which start with the king.

Smith and Zartman seem to think that Islamists either a) need to become more liberal prior to democracy can take hold, or b) need to be slowly guided into democratic systems by the powers that be. But Islamists are no different than the rest of us. They would prefer to have everything their way, but they know that it’s probably not going to happen. They are strategic actors; after all, their willingness to participate in electoral politics is a clear indication of this absolute fact. (“Extreme” Islamists DO NOT take part in elections.) If the Moroccan regime does not provide positive incentives for participating then it runs the risk of causing the Islamists to back out.

Why don’t other parties back out? The Moroccan regime has co-opted just about every political actor – except the PJD. Although the PJD has definitely had its fair share of contact with the palace (some analysts, like Mohsen-Finan and Zeghal, are adamant that the PJD was created by the state), it does not seem to be engaged in the clientelist politics that has trapped other political actors. As long as the PJD remains largely untainted, the regime is going to have to find a way to pacify it… hopefully it will be through positive incentives.

Please note: there are other reasons for the PJD to participate. After all, Islamists don’t necessarily want control of the state apparatus; they want control of society. I’ll save this aspect of the argument for a rainy day.