To what extent has the Syrian Baath Party congress in Damascus changed the political landscape of the Middle East, asks Mohamed Sid-Ahmed On her visit to Egypt and a number of other Middle Eastern countries this week, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice focussed on the need for democratic reform throughout the region. Other items on her agenda included regional peacemaking efforts and counter- terrorism. Urging her hosts to step up the pace of reform and to broaden the base of political participation in their respective countries, she raised questions related to these reforms, in the hope that they would be taken seriously into consideration with no room for ambiguity or misunderstandings. While nobody questions the need for democratic reform, many dispute the right of outsiders to impose it on a sovereign state. It is also questionable whether genuine democratic reform can come about in response to external pressure. In other words, can "pressure" and "reform" go hand in hand? That could explain why public sentiment in the region is running high against the United States despite its championship of the democratic reform all the peoples in the region aspire to. With the exception of the business community, America's behaviour is subject to deep criticism from all other segments of Arab society. In addressing the issue of democratic reform, Egypt insists that any such reform be compatible with tailored to fit its values and traditions. Although many of these values and traditions are the product of a system that has never been democratic, the US accepts the argument that values should not be imposed from abroad. By its very definition, democracy can only emanate from within society. Moreover, democratic reform should not fall into the trap of expediency and allow short-term considerations to take precedence over long-term interests. What other procedural aspects should be respected? What attitude should we adopt towards the issue of inviting inspectors with impeccable credentials from abroad to supervise the electoral process? Should this be looked upon as interference in internal affairs, or something positive that serves the cause of democracy? Where should we stand with respect to the proposal that the judiciary supervise the elections, with no interference from the police or the administration? Moreover, how consistent with democracy is it to set a ceiling on the campaign funds of independent candidates for parliament, while the ruling party candidates have at their disposal funds with no clearly defined limitations? Moving on to the next item on Rice's agenda, regional peacemaking efforts, the most pressing issue is the planned Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Sharon came up with his disengagement plan to relieve himself of the increasingly heavy burden of occupying the hotbed of Palestinian resistance, and shift it on to the shoulders of the Palestinian Authority. According to the plan, the pullout from Gaza is to be the last Israeli withdrawal. But as far as the Palestinians are concerned, it is acceptable only as the first of consecutive Israeli pullouts. Obviously, the logic of withdrawing from Gaza as a first step is totally different from that of making it the last step. How to reconcile these two logics? On the issue of democracy, it should be noted that the popular resentment against America is not only due to the pressure it is bringing to bear on Arab governments in the name of democracy. People cannot help but notice that Iraq and Afghanistan, now under American occupation, have moved no closer to democracy. Then there is the question of how prisoners are abused in the prisons under US control, whether in Abu Ghraib on the outskirts of Baghdad or in Guantanamo across the ocean. And what type of democracy can we be talking about when full priority is given to combating terrorism and where torture is used to extract confessions? In setting itself up as the self-appointed guardian of democracy throughout the world, America is asking us to suspend our critical faculties and forget history. But everyone knows how many dictators it backed and how many non-democratic regimes it supported over the years. Everyone remembers the shameful episode of the McCarthy witch hunts of the Cold War era, when intellectuals were humiliated, harassed and persecuted in the name of its anti- communism drive exactly as people are now molested and assailed in the name of the war on terror. That is not to deny that there are manifestations of American democracy worthy of the highest praise. Anti-war movements, both during the Vietnam War and, more recently, during the war against Iraq, attest to the vitality of American society and its ability to intervene energetically and honourably at critical moments. But there are also sands which are ambiguous. A case in point is the wishy-washy approach Washington is adopting to the question of the legitimacy of dynastic succession in a republic, more specifically, to the possibility of the president's son inheriting his father's position at the head of the Egyptian state. Comparisons have been drawn with the Bush double act, but the comparison is not valid. Although both George Bush senior and George W Bush served as US presidents, their terms were separated by eight years of the Clinton presidency. Moreover, both ran and won in the elections; the mantle of power was not passed from father to son. Rice declared before visiting Cairo that the reforms introduced by Egypt's government were not sufficient and that the recent constitutional amendment replacing the referendum system with a multi-candidate election system had lost its substance through manipulation of the new text. But the logic of the new situation raises a crucial question: what happens if Secretary of State Rice adopts the viewpoint of the opposition rather than that of the government on essential aspects of the reform process? Indeed, before the visit, Rice more than once criticised the government for not doing enough, especially on the issue of limiting the number of successive presidential terms to two. Is it not better that this becomes a point of agreement between Egypt's government and opposition rather than a point of contention between its government and the US administration?
