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This article is © 2011 by Stephen J. Sniegoski. All rights reserved.
This page was published February 4, 2011 by WTM Enterprises.

As Egypt burns for democracy ...
 
The neocons cool off

By STEPHEN J. SNIEGOSKI
 

The current uprisings against the autocratic regimes in the Middle East seem to be in line with the neoconservatives' advocacy of radical democratic change in the region. But there is one significant difference. The neocons had sought to use democratic revolutions to overthrow the enemies of Israel, even applying the strategy, unsuccessfully, to countries such as Saudi Arabia that were client states of the United States. However, democratic revolution is now engulfing the Mubarak regime in Egypt, which has maintained friendly relations with Israel.

As Israeli writer Aluf Benn points out in Ha'aretz, "The fading power of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's government leaves Israel in a state of strategic distress. Without Mubarak, Israel is left with almost no friends in the Middle East." ("Without Egypt, Israel will be left with no friends in Mideast," January 29, 2011) Facing a scenario in which democratic revolution would harm Israeli interests, the neocons' ardor for such a development has cooled dramatically.

At Lobelog, Daniel Luban observes that the neocons were largely silent during the first days of the Egyptian revolution and that those who did comment tended to express some skepticism about the likelihood of its bringing about positive results. He quotes The Weekly Standard's Lee Smith, who cautioned U.S. activists not to become too fond of the Egyptian demonstrators: "It is not always a good thing when people go to the streets; indeed the history of revolutionary action shows that people go to the streets to shed blood more often than they do to demand democratic reforms."

Luban predicts that "if the protests are ultimately unsuccessful, the neocons will attack Obama for letting the protesters twist in the wind; if the protests are ultimately successful, they will claim the events in Egypt as vindication for the Bush democracy promotion agenda." ("More Silence from America's 'Democracy Promoters,'" January 27, 2011)
 

My own research confirms Luban's point that the neocons are not championing radical democratic transformation in the current situation. Also, I found a number of commonalities and differences in the views of the neocons who voiced their opinions as the events in Egypt became a featured topic in the mainstream media. In line with what Luban has written, I found no neoconservatives who have explicitly abandoned their professed faith in their democratic agenda. Instead, they maintain that the revolts validate their democratic prescription for American Middle East policy during the past decades — that had the United States actually fostered democracy in the region, the current revolutionary turmoil would not have ensued.

The neocons differ among themselves, however, in their assessment of the current situation and in their prescriptions for U.S. action. When they express skepticism about the positive nature of the ongoing revolution, they try to demonstrate how that does not conflict with their fundamental faith in democracy. In brief, they profess to identify with the democratic aspirations of the Egyptian demonstrators but question whether democracy will result from their actions.

It it important to understand that the neocons must praise the democratic aim of the uprising: they cannot do otherwise if they intend to maintain their image as champions of democracy at a time when most of the world wholeheartedly identifies with the Egyptian pro-democratic protesters. Moreover, since most observers agree that the Mubarak regime cannot survive, it is strategically necessary for the neocons to jump on the bandwagon and encourage the U.S. government to guide the revolution in directions beneficial to American — and, of course, Israeli — interests, under the guise of preventing it from leading to an alleged greater tyranny of radical Islamists.

The neocon whose views seem to have changed the least is longtime neocon operative Elliott Abrams, the son-in-law of neocon godfather Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter. In assessing the current situation, Abrams heaps blame on America's traditional Middle East foreign policy, which had ignored the domestic policies of autocratic regimes in its focus on U.S. geostrategic interests and regional stability.

Writing in the Washington Post, Abrams states that Mubarak, along with Tunisia's recently deposed leader, Ben Ali, had "proffered the same line to Washington: It's us or the Islamists." He contends that "ruling under an endless emergency law, [Mubarak] has crushed the moderate opposition while the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood has thrived underground and in the mosques." Mubarak's tyrannical policies, in effect, made the Islamist Brotherhood his major opposition, which then enabled him to justify "the lack of democracy by saying a free election would bring the Islamists to power." Abrams acknowledges that while radical Islamists might win free elections, "the regimes that make moderate politics impossible make extremism far more likely. Rule by emergency decree long enough, and you end up creating a genuine emergency. And Egypt has one now."

He asserts that George W. Bush's democracy agenda (inspired, of course, by the neocons) got it completely right about the Middle East, quoting from a 2003 speech by Bush that read: "Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe — because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export."

Abrams notes that there was considerable resistance to the "democracy" agenda, as unrealistic, from within the Bush administration and that the Obama administration abandoned it. He stresses that it has now become essential for Obama to emulate Bush: "Now is the time to say that the peoples of the Middle East are not 'beyond the reach of liberty' and that we will assist any peaceful effort to achieve it — and oppose and condemn efforts to suppress it." ("Egypt protests show George W. Bush was right about freedom in the Arab world," January 28, 2011)
 

Bill Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard and perhaps the most prominent neoconservative active today, expresses somewhat belated support for the revolutionary cause in Egypt but wants to make sure that the United States will guide it in the proper direction. "Mubarak," he contends, "is now part of the problem, not part of the solution. His attempt to hang on to power is now an obstacle to stability in Egypt, to say nothing of considerations of freedom for the Egyptian people and the long-term interests of the United States. Surely, I would say, it's time for the U.S. government to take an active role (much but not all of it behind the scenes), working with the army and civil and political organizations to bring about a South Korea / Philippines / Chile-like transition in Egypt, from an American-supported dictatorship to an American-supported and popularly legitimate liberal democracy." ("Working Group on Egypt Calls for Suspension of U.S. Aid," The Weekly Standard, January 29, 2011)

Writing in his blog "Neocon Corner" at World Affairs, Joshua Muravchik, a veteran neocon stalwart of a more leftist, social-democratic persuasion, views the crisis in Egypt as having great potential ramifications. "The uprising in the streets of Egypt could remake our world," Muravchik declares. "Turmoil is contagious.... If the flames are not smothered fast in Egypt, which is still the most influential country of the Arab world, the conflagration will spread across the region."

Muravchik posits three possible outcomes. The first, which he describes as "less than momentous," would see Egypt becoming "more of a military dictatorship and less of a party-ruled state. And it might muddle along that way, as it has already for generations. The consequences would be sad for Egyptians, not so major for the rest of the world."

Muravchik next offers a "hopeful scenario" that would involve "an agreement between the regime and leading opponents on some kind of redistribution of power which could be meaningful only through honest elections. This would create a model that would be hard for the region's other autocrats to withstand. A wave of democratization would spread over the Middle East like the one that hit Eastern and Central Europe in 1989."

Finally, Muravchik sets forth the "frightening scenario" in which "the army crumbles ... the revolution triumphs, and that the only organized force capable of picking up power from the streets ... is the Muslim Brotherhood."

The "best bet" for Egypt, Muravchik contends, is to have a fair election this year, and he argues that it is essential for the United States "to throw its weight into the demand" that this be done. "If Obama makes such a call, many Egyptian voices will echo it," Muravchik opines. "The current chaos could make things much better for Egypt and the region — or much worse. The time for Obama to find his silver tongue is now." ("What Egypt Portends: Three Scenarios," January 28, 2011)
 

David Frum, who crafted George W. Bush's notorious "Axis of Evil" speech, provides more-qualified support for the political upheaval in Egypt. Like Abrams, he agrees that dictatorships are ultimately fragile and that Washington should have actively pushed for democracy there long ago.

"This week's protests remind us that dictatorships do not deliver stability," Frum asserts in a piece at The National Post. "Dictatorships do not make reliable allies over the long term. Egypt's friends should be planning — should have planned long ago — for a transition to a more representative form of government." But Frum does not see the fall of the Mubarak regime as certain. And instead of supporting immediate revolutionary change, as sought by the street demonstrators, he argues for a slow transition to democracy, which "means gradually bringing more and more of the population into politics." ("Egypt's small steps towards true democracy," January 29, 2011)

Neocon Michael Ledeen championed radical democratic revolution when it was directed against what essentially were the enemies of Israel (a category in which he included Saudi Arabia). He expressed such extreme views as: "Creative destruction is our middle name.... It is time once again to export the democratic revolution," and, "One can only hope that we turn the region into a cauldron, and faster, please. If ever there were a region that richly deserved being cauldronized, it is the Middle East today." (The Transparent Cabal, p. 209) But confronted now with an actual revolutionary upheaval, the ultra-radical Ledeen has metamorphosed into a veritable paragon of caution, writing at PajamasMedia that "in Egypt, which is by far the most important of the Arab countries affected by the tumult, there are genuine democrats and also members of organizations (from the Muslim Brotherhood to Islamic Jihad, Hamas, et al.) who would transform Egypt from an authoritarian to a totalitarian regime." Quoting his grandmother, Ledeen says: "Things are never so bad they can't get worse."

Ledeen puts forth considerable effort to show how his current cautious stance does not conflict with his overall support for democracy. "We are supposed to be the revolutionaries, and we must support democratic revolution against tyranny," he solemnly avers. "But we must not support phony democrats, and for [President Obama] to say 'Egypt's destiny will be determined by the Egyptian people,' or 'everyone wants to be free' is silly and dangerous. Egypt's destiny will be determined by a fight among Egyptian people, some of whom wish to be free and others who wish to install a tyranny worse than Mubarak's. That's the opposite of freedom. Think about the free elections in Gaza that brought the Hamas killers to power."

Ledeen agrees with the other neocons that the traditional U.S. Middle East policy of all-out support for authoritarian leaders was bound to fail. "We should have been pressuring the friendly tyrants in the Middle East to liberalize their polities lo these many years," he argues. "We should have done it in the shah's Iran, and in Mubarak's Egypt, and in Ben Ali's Tunisia. It is possible to move peacefully from dictatorship to democracy.... But we didn't...."

However, he sees a silver lining in the current crisis since, he maintains, it offers the ideal opportunity for Washington to come out in support of the Green Movement revolutionaries in Iran: "If we're going to praise the Tunisian and Egyptian freedom fighters, all the more reason to hail the true martyrs in Iran." Ledeen emphasizes that it is necessary to "support democratic revolution. But not false revolutionaries." And of course, he actually means that a "democratic revolution" is one that advances the interests of Israel, while "false revolutionaries" are those who act against Israeli interests. ("Egypt: Revolution? By Whom? For What?," January 28, 2011)

John Bolton, a longtime member of the neoconservative nexus who currently is making noises about running for the Republican presidential nomination, does not even pay lip service to democracy in his negative portrayal of the political upheaval in Egypt. It should be said that this complete slighting of democracy makes Bolton something of an outlier among the neocons. Instead, he focuses solely on the Muslim Brotherhood bogeyman. He goes so far as to say that he does not "think we have evidence yet that these demonstrations are necessarily about democracy. You know the old saying, 'one person, one vote, one time.' The Muslim Brotherhood doesn't care about democracy, if they get into power you're not going to have free and fair elections either." For Bolton, the fundamental issue revolves around American geostrategic interests.

"Let's be clear what the stakes are for the United States," he asserts. "We have an authoritarian regime in power that has been our ally." Bolton believes, and seems to hope, that the Egyptian army, which he describes as the real power in the country, could act to suppress the revolution. ("Is Democracy Coming to Egypt at Last?," Fox News, January 28, 2011)
 

From the neocons' less-than-enthusiastic reaction to the ongoing democratic revolutionary wave in the Middle East, it is apparent that they are far from being democratic ideologues, as has often been claimed. And that has been apparent for some time. In The Transparent Cabal, I cite many instances where the neocons have taken positions that are contrary to supporting democracy — their opposition to democratic rights for Palestinians being the most egregious example but far from the only one.

I point out that the "neoconservatives have not always even claimed to be exponents of democracy as a policy goal; in fact, it was the rejection of pushing democracy as a foreign policy goal that loomed large in their early years. During the Cold War, the neoconservatives emphasized that it was essential to support dictatorships, if they were pro-United States, as part of the overall war on Soviet Communism. They were especially critical of President Jimmy Carter's emphasis on human rights in foreign policy, which they held had served to undermine anti-Communist pro-American dictatorships, such as the Shah's Iran and Somoza's Nicaragua, and facilitated their transformation into anti-American dictatorships that might align with the Soviet Union." (The Transparent Cabal, pp. 227-8)

In short, instead of being actual ideologues of democracy, the neocons largely use "democracy" as a rhetorical weapon to advance their own particular agenda, which currently involves advancing the interests of the state of Israel, interests that they claim to be identical to those of the United States.

One would expect, then, that the interests of Israel would weigh heavily in their assessment of the current political upheaval in Egypt. Thus, the neoconservatives express their support for democracy in general in Egypt but then raise the specter of a Muslim Brotherhood takeover of Egypt, and the concomitant emergence of an undemocratic theocratic state, if a free democratic election should actually take place.

But why should the Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest and largest Islamic political organization, be prohibited from participating in the politics of Egypt? That transnational organization renounces the use of force and expresses its commitment to democracy — a commitment that it has demonstrated in practice. The Brotherhood's announced support for Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei to negotiate with the Mubarak regime would seem to dispel fears of any anti-democratic intent. Moreover, political parties composed of Brotherhood members take part in other democratic governments, including that of Iraq, where the Islamic Party represents the religious Arab Sunni population. And the activist secular leaders of the revolution for democracy in Egypt (who would have the most to lose) do not express any grave fear that the Muslim Brotherhood would subvert a nascent Egyptian democracy. (See "What's So Scary About Egypt's Islamists?," Time, November 29, 2010.)

It is quite apparent that the Muslim Brotherhood is considered dangerous because it has long been hostile to Israel and because its impact on Egyptian policy would likely be to move the country away from its current friendly relationship with Israel. The Brotherhood's prescription for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to support the Palestinian armed resistance, especially that of Hamas. Although that certainly contradicts the goals of Israeli and American foreign policy, it is no more a violation of democracy than the militant foreign-policy positions expressed by various Israeli, or, for that matter, U.S. politicians. For a true believer in democracy, Egyptian foreign policy should be something for the Egyptian people to determine, not the United States or Israel.
 

As I bring out in The Transparent Cabal, the fundamental goal of the neocons, like that of the Israeli Right, is the destabilization and fragmentation of Israel's enemies, for which the rhetoric of democracy provides an ideal façade. Since Mubarak's Egypt has maintained relatively friendly relations with Israel, it has not been targeted for destabilization and fragmentation. Instead, the neocons have targeted Saddam's Iraq and the Islamic Republic of Iran, which are enemies of both Israel and the United States (thanks in part, at least, to the efforts of the Israel lobby). And, as described in The Transparent Cabal, the neocons have developed less-publicized plans to destabilize Saudi Arabia, a crucial friend of the United States but in various ways hostile to Israel.

It should be emphasized, however, that the neocon position toward Egypt definitely could change in the future: that country, too, could become a target for democratic destabilization. That prospect was actually mentioned in a controversial presentation in July 2002 by Laurent Murawiec, a senior fellow at the neoconservative Hudson Institute, before the Defense Policy Board (the advisory panel for the U.S. Department of Defense), at the behest of the board chairman, neocon guru Richard Perle.

At a time when the Bush administration was gearing up to make war on Iraq, Murawiec's target for U.S. military intervention, ironically enough, was Saudi Arabia, which he described as the principal supporter of anti-American terrorism — "the kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent." Murawiec concluded his briefing with a summary of what he called a "Grand Strategy for the Middle East," declaring that "Iraq is the tactical pivot. Saudi Arabia the strategic pivot. Egypt the prize."

In sum, neocons are willing to consider destabilizing Egypt sometime in the future. Should a regime that is hostile to Israel emerge from the current turmoil, a plan to destabilize the country could move to the forefront. (See The Transparent Cabal, pp. 203-4.)  Ω

February 4, 2011

© 2011 by Stephen J. Sniegoski. All rights reserved.
This page was published in 2011 by WTM Enterprises.

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