Challenges of U.S. Democracy Promotion in the Middle East : หน้า 8/52

There has been no successful democratic revolution in any Middle Eastern country. Instead, the democratic openings advocated and supported by the United States have either led to sectarian division or revealed the greater popular appeal and strength of Islamist rather than liberal organizations, one of several reasons the United States has retreated from democracy promotion. Far from having leapfrogged over old problems, the United States is now confronting most of the old problems, often in a more acute way, as well as new ones. This more troubled new Middle East has obviously not been created solely by U.S. policies. Regional state and nonstate actors have shaped and continue to shape its changing reality. But U.S. policies have been a major factor. The underlying thrust of those policies has been confrontation, including the use or at least the threat of force—"preemptive action," in the words of the September 2002 National Security Strategy. The United States has used force in Afghanistan, Iraq, and in many arenas of the war on terror. The Bush administration also relied on other forms of coercion, calling for UN Security Council resolutions condemning Syria and Iran, or imposing unilateral sanctions, such as those on the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority and on the Revolutionary Guards in Iran. Despite occasional forays into diplomacy, as in the successful resolution of conflicts with Libya over terrorism and weapons of mass destruction in 2003, the theme of confrontation runs through the Middle East policy of the Bush administration and even of the U.S. Congress throughout this period. To be sure, views in the administration were never unanimous. During President Bush's first term, Secretary of State Colin Powell represented a much more traditional, cautious, and diplomatic approach to the Middle East, but his views did not prevail. An element of diplomacy was reintroduced in early 2007, at a time when the administration faced spiraling violence in Iraq, the failure of efforts to convince Iran to abandon its efforts to develop nuclear capability, and the refusal of major allies, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to cooperate on any U.S. initiative unless the Israeli-Palestinian peace process were revived. After rejecting outright the late 2006 recommendation of the independent Iraqi Study Group that the United States should start talking with Iraq's neighbors, including Iran and Syria, the administration opened a dialogue of sorts with both in 2007. The Iranian and U.S. ambassadors to Iraq met three times in Baghdad in the course of the year. Secretary of State Rice had a brief encounter with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem on the margins of an international conference on the reconstruction of Iraq in Sharm al-Sheikh in May 2007. In November, after much hesitation, Syria was invited to participate in a meeting held in Annapolis to relaunch the Middle East peace process. But none of these brief diplomatic interludes altered the generally confrontational tone of U.S. policy. The ambassadorial meetings in Baghdad did not prevent President Bush and Vice President Cheney from fulminating about the threat of nuclear Armageddon and a third world war emanating from Iran. Similarly, the publication in December of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that concluded that Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003 prompted a correct White House statement that Iran continued not to cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) and to enrich uranium contrary to UN resolutions. However, this valid reminder of Iran's ongoing challenge to international