U.S. election skews Iraq agenda

Martin Woollacott Guardian News Service London

As the presidential campaign sharpened in America it was to be expected that the Bush administration's Middle East policies, already misguided in critical ways, would be further distorted. There is the race towards an arbitrarily chosen date this summer on which sovereignty will be handed to the Iraqis, a change that may prove either cosmetic or convulsive, perhaps both.

There is the push to subsume Ariel Sharon's plans for unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and a unilateral division of the West Bank into a supposed resumption of the peace process. And, thirdly, there is the effort to create a grand scheme under which the industrialized countries are to aid in the democratization of the whole Middle East.

What the three have in common is that they are designed to suggest to the American electorate that American policies are proceeding effectively, that other countries are willingly sharing the burden, and that the United Nations is on board What they also have in common, beyond the intention of spiking John Kerry's guns, is their limited substance, their intention of involving America's allies in a show of alleged progress, and the fact that they could prove counter-productive.

This is dubious ground, on which the EU, Russia, and the UN should tread with care. It is not that stability and democracy in Iraq are not goals worth pursuing. It might even be argued that a determined America could bolt on to Sharon's idea of bolting from Gaza a peace plan worthy of the name.

And it is true that there are manifestations of democracy in the region. A tougher attitude by western countries toward the authoritarian regimes they have supported, and more aid for grassroots organizations, might help.

But this is subject to important provisions -- that things be done at the proper time, in the proper sequence, and in the proper way -- unlikely to be observed in practice. To be in too much of a rush in Iraq, to be in no hurry to tackle the real issues in Israel and Palestine, and to want to see a kind of instant celestial choir- singing democracy over the region suggests at best a dangerous lack of seriousness; the first needs to be done more slowly and surely, the second both more quickly and differently, and the third more discreetly.

The worst aspect is that U.S. policy appears to be aimed at establishing that progress across the region is possible while continuing to neglect the Israeli-Palestinian problem, or allowing Sharon to devise his own "solution". Vice-president Cheney even implied in a speech at Davos that an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must wait on the general establishment of democracy, a breathtaking postponement.

Association with such arguments is not a good idea for those countries that have managed to maintain some distance from U.S. policy. Yet association is what the Bush administration wants. The Quartet on the Israeli-Palestinian question -- Russia, the EU, the UN and the U.S. -- will either be drawn into the Gaza plan or risk becoming still more irrelevant. (The Palestinians themselves are also being drawn in, but they have little choice.)

The Americans want both NATO and the UN to have larger roles in Iraq. Whether they can play such roles without being seen as American auxiliaries is arguable, even if the UN has a formal pre-eminence or U.S. troops serve under NATO command, neither of which is in any case established.

Finally, the Bush administration wants the industrialized countries at the G8 meeting this summer to endorse its greater Middle East initiative to foster democracy and development in the region, in which it includes Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to bring many of their own programs under its umbrella.

The objectives of the American plan, as understood from a version published by the Arabic newspaper al-Hayat, include free trade zones and help for small businesses, election "assistance," more aid for education, especially women's, more funding for women's rights and more ties to local groups advocating democracy.

The implication is also that the U.S. and other countries would not only change the nature of some aid but make existing aid, including military aid, conditional on governments accommodating these objectives.

In themselves such purposes are more or less desirable and not dissimilar from those of existing European programs, both national and EU, and of some non-governmental organizations. An interesting prospectus for intensifying such quiet work, including the controversial idea of engaging with Islamist civil society, was recently put forward at a conference organized in London by the Foreign Policy Center and a new organization called Civility, which believes the west does have a role to play in Middle Eastern reform.

But the Americans have launched their version of this with too much publicity and too little consultation, creating both expectations and fears in the region, which could be obstacles to the good they might separately achieve. The enthusiasm for European participation also undermines what Gilles Kepel, the French scholar of Islam, called at the same conference "the comparative advantage of Europe in the Middle East", which "is that we are not American".

It is increasingly true that Arabs, in particular, used to consider Europeans well-meaning but ineffective, but now think of them as collaborators in American projects. Europe needs to preserve its distance. At least making its disapproval of American policy clear in some instances should make its qualified approval of American policy in others more influential with Arabs who care about what Europe thinks.

The need to keep distance has collided, however, with the political need to build bridges after the rift over the Iraq war. Bush has already persuaded Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, on his recent trip to the U.S., to say the right words about associating German programs for democracy and development in the Middle East with those of America. Britain and other countries have been also been supportive.

The trouble about a fanfare democratic campaign with U.S., EU and NATO bells on it is that it is likely to be rejected on all three levels that matter in the Middle East: By the ruling elites, by the people at large and even by the groups and organizations working for democratic change.

A quiet campaign might be another matter, but unfortunately that does not suit the Bush administration's purposes, tied as they are to the electoral timetable, and to its fixed opinions on Israel, Sharon and Arafat. The administration's need to make a show of success on the Iraqi, Israeli-Palestinian and democracy fronts, without making the necessary painful changes of policy or doing the necessary hard work, diminishes the chances of success on all three.