Speaking softly, going stickless

Following the murderous attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we in the United States had an opportunity – however slim – to reshape perceptions in the Middle East. A measured response – removing the Taliban from power and netting al Qaeda members in Afghanistan along with a thorough investigation of terror networks operating out of Europe may have also resulted in some soul-searching among Muslims and some self-examination of the fetid politics of the Middle East. Why would relatively middle class kids from Egypt carry out suicide attacks? Why are wealthy members of the Saudi ruling class provide monetary support?

But we decided that a measured response was for pussies, so we invoked the Ledeen Doctrine while at the same time claiming to be working towards a new democratic dawn in the Middle East, demanding “reform” even among our allies. In so doing, we’ve humiliated and enraged the population throughout the region while getting nothing in return from autocratic governments in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. And our tough talk, rather than encourage reform movements in places like Iran, have instead encouraged nationalistic bluster in response and a partnership of necessity between Iran and Syria.

The schizophrenia of the Bush administration’s approach to “reshaping” the Middle East – pushing “crappy little countries” around on the one hand, while demanding peace, love and understanding among others has brought us to this point.

Cellphone videos posted on the Internet showed the police sodomizing a bus driver with a broomstick. Another showed the police hanging a woman by her knees and wrists from a pole for questioning. A company partly owned by a member of the governing party distributed tens of thousands of bags of contaminated blood to hospitals around the country. And just 24 hours before Ms. Rice arrived, the authorities arrested a television reporter on charges of harming national interests by making a film about police torture. The reporter was released, but the authorities kept the tapes.

Ms. Rice, who once lectured Egyptians on the need to respect the rule of law, did not address those domestic concerns. Instead, with Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit by her side, she talked about her appreciation for Egypt’s support in the region.

It was clear that the United States — facing chaos in Iraq, rising Iranian influence and the destabilizing Israeli-Palestinian conflict — had decided that stability, not democracy, was its priority, Egyptian political commentators, political aides and human rights advocates said.

But the calculus of stabilization is complicated and fraught in a region as fragile as the Middle East, where interests are defined by religion, geography, geopolitics and political opportunism. And it is not at all clear that the new (old) approach will work. The United States is so unpopular in the region now, many here say, that its support is enough to undermine a government’s legitimacy with its public.

“The former pressure was an illusion and the lack of any pressure now will push the crisis between the people and their rulers to the edge,” said Ibrahim Eissa, the editor of Al Dustoor, a weekly independent newspaper in Egypt that is critical of the government. That eliminates “all false appearances that the Arab regimes are against the United States in defense of their independent sovereignty and that the United States is supporting democracy when it is in strict alliance with the oppressive regimes,” he added.