Answering Readers’ Questions on Libya, Middle East Democracy, and Islam

Answering Readers’ Questions on Libya, Middle East Democracy, and Islam

by Barry Rubin


1. Why does the administration not want to get approval from Congress for the Libya mission when, as as far as I can tell, getting approval would be quite easy? Do they not wish to have a discussion about why we are intervening in Libya, but not Syria?

Interesting question. But the premise might be wrong. I don’t think they’d have an easy time. First, Congress would want to know what their goal is. It isn’t clear. There would be questions about whether the government is exceeding the UN resolution or what the limitations are on their tactics. Why are American forces still involved when Obama said this would be a short campaign? What is the Libyan opposition about and how can you help them win if you don’t know? I think they’d have a rough time. Hasn’t the administration overstretched the military? That’s especially true when the military will be leaking how unhappy it is with the Libya policy.

2. What should the U.S. have done in response to the Egyptian demonstrations and their increasing repression by the Mubarak regime? Would the appropriate U.S. policy have been to continue propping up Mubarak? More generally, what are the conditions under which the Arab world can democratize?

What the U.S. should have done is what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposed: support the regime in the broader sense of the word, get rid of Mubarak, and strive for continuity and reform. Not demand that the whole thing should be torn down immediately and create a situation of anarchy and rushing that benefited the Muslim Brotherhood.

To have democratization, you must be able to find people who want a democratic system, not just elections that they think they can win and then form a dictatorship. Even if—as has often happened in modern Middle East history—the regime might be called a dictatorship of the majority, that doesn’t make it a democracy.

Every country is different. I think Tunisia has a good chance of making it; Syria’s big advantage is that moderate and pro-democratic forces are stronger there and the Muslim Brotherhood is weaker than in Egypt. Syria’s big disadvantage is a complex communal situation that could lead to bloody ethnic strife and even massacres.

In contrast, an attempt at any such shift in Jordan would be a disaster. We saw what happened with elections in Lebanon and the PA areas. Can Tunisia be a success and a role model? Because if even Tunisia cannot create a stable democratic state then no one can.

Indeed, Lebanon and Turkey have failed (at least temporarily) as democracies, if one regards the rise of a radical Islamist regime as a failure. The voice of the people was implemented, but did it produce an elected dictatorship that represses dissent? Will there be free and fair elections in the future? The PA elections led to one party seizing all the power in one part and the other in the other part with no elections being held. Egypt’s direction is a foregone conclusion, I believe.

On a partly positive note, Iraq is holding on, though perhaps barely and temporarily, and the Kurds have created a quasi-democratic sub-state in the north. Kuwait and some of the smaller Gulf states have opened up compared to what they were in the past, though one should not overstate the progress toward democracy. Morocco and Jordan also have a measure of democracy, though the monarchies are always sure to keep control.

Bahrain is very complex because there is a lot of injustice in the treatment of the Shia and there are moderate Shia, but there are also Iran-backed radicals. It would be a good candidate for reasonable reform, but unfortunately the regime is very rigid. Yet regimes facing the real possibility of overthrow, with their current leaders sent to prison or firing squads, are going to be less willing to take risks and release more of their power. In Yemen, the conflicts have nothing to do with democracy but are tribal and factional quarrels. The only thing that would change there is the name of the dictator.

I believe the U.S. should give more support to moderates and democrats in Turkey, Iran, Syria, and Lebanon, where it gives no help or encouragement at all (other than formal statements that are useless).

But to begin with, one must have a realistic view and understand the forces in play. See my book, The Long War for Freedom (Wiley), which is a detailed and sympathetic assessment of the Arab moderates, their arguments, and their problems.

3. How do you tell a moderate Muslim from a radical one?

First of all, there are moderate Muslims and Muslims who are moderates. The first category means people who want a more moderate Islam and try to influence the religion. The second category is those who happen to be Muslims but that is not the central factor shaping their political views. For example, the Turkish republic was for many decades a country of Muslims who were moderates and favored a democratic system.

To know the difference you read what they say to each other in Arabic (or Turkish or Farsi, whatever their language is). You understand their approach and world view.

4.There are no moderate Muslims — is it a myth created by liberals?

Funny, I know a lot of them and they don’t seem a myth to me. But they are about 1 percent, have little power, and Western governments show no sympathy for them. Again, the problem is NOT that no moderate Muslims exist. The problem is: A.) Radicals are portrayed as moderates repeatedly in the West or pretend to be such; and B.) the number of moderates is very limited, they have little influence, and they are constantly intimidated.

But there are millions of anti-Islamist Muslims all over the world. They may be traditionalists, they may be nationalists, and they may be moderates. Yet their interpretation of Islam is different from that of the Islamists. We should remember that it wasn’t long ago when revolutionary Islamists were viewed as virtual heretics. The fact that Islamists draw on normative Islam doesn’t prove that they have the only or the correct interpretation of Islam.

It is ridiculous to claim that radical Islamists aren’t “real” or “proper” Muslims. But it is equally ridiculous to claim that all Muslims must be Islamists or they aren’t following their religion.

There are three camps in the West in understanding this issue:
Islamists represent the “right” interpretation of Islam and thus there cannot be moderate Muslims. This is the view taken by many on the “anti-jihad” side. It isn’t wrong because such a view is “bigoted” or isn’t helpful tactically. It is wrong because it doesn’t correspond to the facts and realities.
Islamists have hijacked the real Islam which is a religion of peace. That is the position of “politically correct” people, the idea that dominates Western governments, the mass media, and academia. This view is equally ridiculous. Islamists can cite the Koran, the hadith, and many other sacred writings to justify their positions. They didn’t make this stuff up. Violent jihad, treating non-Muslims as dhimmis, and antisemitism are not new ideas which emerged from the minds of a tiny minority.
There is in Islam, as in other religions, a struggle over interpretations. Different sides can cite texts and precedents. Were the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, and the worst excesses of the past the “real” Christianity? Of course not. And Christianity changed over time. Many debates and battles took place. The problem with Islam is not its “essence” but its place on the timeline. In Western terms, the debate in Islam is in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, with powerful forces wanting to return to the seventh century.

My view, the third one, can be summed up as seeing two people fighting over control of the steering wheel in an automobile speeding down the road. Both can claim ownership of the car. As an anti-Islamist Iranian intellectual once put it, the minute someone says that Islam must be interpreted in any one way they are wrong.

The reality is that for centuries Islam was overwhelmingly practiced in a way different from the views of Iran’s current rulers, Hamas, Hizballah, al-Qaeda, and the Muslim Brotherhood. All of these groups freely acknowledge that point. It is precisely why they want a revolution. Traditionalist Muslims may not be to one’s tastes, but they were not generating suicide bombers or actively seeking world conquest. That’s also why most of the people the revolutionary Islamists kill are also Muslims who oppose them.

One day, though it might take a century or more, the reformists will probably win, but that isn’t about to happen. Indeed, the tide is going in the opposite direction. Except in Iran—where people are fed up and have learned from unpleasant experience—Islamists are becoming stronger and traditionalist Muslims are going over to their side.

According to the “religion of peace” and “tiny minority of extremists” crowd, the moderates must win. Those who say that there is no such thing as a “moderate Muslim” and that Islam is inevitably extremist insist that the radicals must win precisely because they aren’t really radical but mainstream.

As these two sides in the battle among Muslims—the Islamists and the anti-Islamists—fight with each other the car can go over a cliff, and if the Islamists win the car will definitely go over a cliff. The side that wins the battle—and wins over most Muslims—will determine the interpretation of Islam for many years to come. The result is not preordained.