[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 116 (Monday, September 18, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9675-S9676]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 CRISIS OF DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I wish to share with the Senate an 
important analysis of the current crisis of democracy in the Middle 
East by one of Egypt's wisest and most courageous voices for democracy.
  We all have an interest in supporting democracy. We also recognize 
that countries in the Middle East, including Muslim countries with 
which we have close relations, are confronting difficult and divisive 
social, religious, and political challenges. These challenges have no 
simple solutions. But we should be concerned with the support that the 
Bush administration, like many of its predecessors, gives to autocratic 
and corrupt regimes in this volatile part of the world. It has 
contributed to anger and disillusionment, particularly among Muslims, 
toward their own governments and toward the United States, and growing 
support for those who promote extremist political and religious 
agendas.
  Saad Eddin Ibrahim is a respected Egyptian prodemocracy activist and 
sociologist. He founded the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies 
at the American University of Cairo, one of the few independent 
research institutions in the Arab world. He has been wrongly 
imprisoned, and then acquitted, for his criticism of the Egyptian 
Government and for his relations with international organizations. Saad 
Ibrahim is a respected and principled advocate for human rights and 
democratic values, and he represents a voice of reason and tolerance in 
an increasingly polarized and antagonistic Muslim society.
  His recent op-ed in the Washington Post should serve as a wake-up 
call for proponents of our current policies in support of repressive 
regimes around the world. He has had the courage to speak out against 
Muslim dictatorships, and he not only represents those who oppose 
authoritarianism but also those who oppose radical Islam and extremism.
  All Senators should take the time to consider Saad Ibrahim's 
perspective, and I ask unanimous consent that his op-ed be printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Aug. 23, 2006]

               The ``New Middle East'' Bush Is Resisting

                        (By Saad Eddin Ibrahim)

       President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may 
     be quite right about a new Middle East being born. In fact, 
     their policies in support of the actions of their closest 
     regional ally, Israel, have helped midwife the newborn. But 
     it will not be exactly the baby they have longed for. For one 
     thing, it will be neither secular nor friendly to the United 
     States. For another, it is going to be a rough birth.
       What is happening in the broader Middle East and North 
     Africa can be seen as a boomerang effect that has been 
     playing out slowly since the horrific events of Sept. 11, 
     2001. In the immediate aftermath of those attacks, there was 
     worldwide sympathy for the United States and support for its 
     declared ``war on terrorism,'' including the invasion of 
     Afghanistan. Then the cynical exploitation of this universal 
     goodwill by so-called neoconservatives to advance hegemonic 
     designs was confirmed by the war in Iraq. The Bush 
     administration's dishonest statements about ``weapons of mass 
     destruction'' diminished whatever credibility the United 
     States might have had as liberator, while disastrous 
     mismanagement of Iraqi affairs after the invasion led to the 
     squandering of a conventional military victory. The country 
     slid into bloody sectarian violence, while official 
     Washington stonewalled and refused to admit mistakes. No 
     wonder the world has progressively turned against America.
       Against this declining moral standing, President Bush made 
     something of a comeback in the first year of his second term. 
     He shifted his foreign policy rhetoric from a ``war on 
     terrorism'' to a war of ideas and a struggle for liberty and 
     democracy. Through much of 2005 it looked as if the Middle 
     East

[[Page S9676]]

     might finally have its long-overdue spring of freedom. 
     Lebanon forged a Cedar Revolution, triggered by the 
     assassination of its popular former prime minister, Rafiq 
     Hariri. Egypt held its first multi-candidate presidential 
     election in 50 years. So did Palestine and Iraq, despite 
     harsh conditions of occupation. Qatar and Bahrain in the 
     Arabian Gulf continued their steady evolution into 
     constitutional monarchies. Even Saudi Arabia held its first 
     municipal elections.
       But there was more. Hamas mobilized candidates and popular 
     campaigns to win a plurality in Palestinian legislative 
     elections and form a new government. Hezbollah in Lebanon and 
     the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt achieved similar electoral 
     successes. And with these developments, a sudden chill fell 
     over Washington and other Western capitals.
       Instead of welcoming these particular elected officials 
     into the newly emerging democratic fold, Washington began a 
     cold war on Muslim democrats. Even the tepid pressure on 
     autocratic allies of the United States to democratize in 2005 
     had all but disappeared by 2006. In fact, tottering Arab 
     autocrats felt they had a new lease on life with the West 
     conveniently cowed by an emerging Islamist political force.
       Now the cold war on Islamists has escalated into a shooting 
     war, first against Hamas in Gaza and then against Hezbollah 
     in Lebanon. Israel is perceived in the region, rightly or 
     wrongly, to be an agent acting on behalf of U.S. interests. 
     Some will admit that there was provocation for Israel to 
     strike at Hamas and Hezbollah following the abduction of 
     three soldiers and attacks on military and civilian targets. 
     But destroying Lebanon with an overkill approach born of a 
     desire for vengeance cannot be morally tolerated or 
     politically justified--and it will not work.
       On July 30 Arab, Muslim and world outrage reached an 
     unprecedented level with the Israeli bombing of a residential 
     building in the Lebanese village of Qana, which killed dozens 
     and wounded hundreds of civilians, most of them children. A 
     similar massacre in Qana in 1996, which Arabs remember 
     painfully well, proved to be the political undoing of 
     then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres. It is too early to 
     predict whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will survive 
     Qana II and the recent war. But Hezbollah will survive, 
     just as it has already outlasted five Israeli prime 
     ministers and three American presidents.
       Born in the thick of an earlier Israeli invasion, in 1982, 
     Hezbollah is at once a resistance movement against foreign 
     occupation, a social service provider for the needy of the 
     rural south and the slum-dwellers of Beirut, and a model 
     actor in Lebanese and Middle Eastern politics. Despite access 
     to millions of dollars in resources from within and from 
     regional allies Syria and Iran, its three successive leaders 
     have projected an image of clean governance and a pious 
     personal lifestyle.
       In more than four weeks of fighting against the strongest 
     military machine in the region, Hezbollah held its own and 
     won the admiration of millions of Arabs and Muslims. People 
     in the region have compared its steadfastness with the swift 
     defeat of three large Arab armies in the Six-Day War of 1967. 
     Hasan Nasrallah, its current leader, spoke several times to a 
     wide regional audience through his own al-Manar network as 
     well as the more popular al-Jazeera. Nasrallah has become a 
     household name in my own country, Egypt.
       According to the preliminary results of a recent public 
     opinion survey of 1,700 Egyptians by the Cairo-based Ibn 
     Khaldun Center, Hezbollah's action garnered 75 percent 
     approval, and Nasrallah led a list of 30 regional public 
     figures ranked by perceived importance. He appears on 82 
     percent of responses, followed by Iranian President Mahmoud 
     Ahmadinejad (73 percent), Khaled Meshal of Hamas (60 
     percent), Osama bin Laden (52 percent) and Mohammed Mahdi 
     Akef of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood (45 percent).
       The pattern here is clear, and it is Islamic. And among the 
     few secular public figures who made it into the top 10 are 
     Palestinian Marwan Barghouti (31 percent) and Egypt's Ayman 
     Nour (29 percent), both of whom are prisoners of conscience 
     in Israeli and Egyptian jails, respectively.
       None of the current heads of Arab states made the list of 
     the 10 most popular public figures. While subject to future 
     fluctuations, these Egyptian findings suggest the direction 
     in which the region is moving. The Arab people do not respect 
     the ruling regimes, perceiving them to be autocratic, corrupt 
     and inept. They are, at best, ambivalent about the fanatical 
     Islamists of the bin Laden variety. More mainstream Islamists 
     with broad support, developed civic dispositions and services 
     to provide are the most likely actors in building a new 
     Middle East. In fact, they are already doing so through the 
     Justice and Development Party in Turkey, the similarly named 
     PJD in Morocco, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in 
     Palestine and, yes, Hezbollah in Lebanon.
       These groups, parties and movements are not inimical to 
     democracy. They have accepted electoral systems and practiced 
     electoral politics, probably too well for Washington's taste. 
     Whether we like it or not, these are the facts. The rest of 
     the Western world must come to grips with the new reality, 
     even if the U.S. president and his secretary of state 
     continue to reject the new offspring of their own policies.

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