The Impact of U.S. Pressure on Egyptian Democratic Reform : หน้า 29/52

Rice gave a more detailed explanation of the American approach to democratic reform in a speech in Cairo in June 2005. In January 2006, the United States went further: it canceled a meeting planned to launch negotiations on a free-trade agreement to express dissatisfaction with the Egyptian government’s attempt to curb the opposition, in particular the imprisonment on dubious charges of Ayman Nour, the leader of a new liberal opposition party. Egypt’s response to the pressure from the United States and from domestic groups was typical: it introduced some changes, including a constitutional amendment that required direct election of the president, rather than his indirect choice by the parliament. But then the Egyptian government proceeded to void the reform of most of its significance by attaching to it regulations that strictly limited competition and later by enacting a new set of constitutional amendments that made the system more, rather than less, restrictive. In the end, U.S. pressure on Egypt and other countries was short-lived. By mid-2006, with the situation in Iraq deteriorating and concern about Iran mounting, the administration forgot its previous criticism of friendly autocratic regimes, redefined them as moderates, and sought to forge an anti-Iranian alliance with the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, namely Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman, plus Egypt and Jordan. The failing attempts to promote reform from the top were abandoned in the name of security. Well aware of the United States’ troubles in the region and the strategic leverage it gives them, rulers such as King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and President Mubarak of Egypt have pushed for nothing less than a return to pre-9/11 American policies, i.e., ignoring the domestic behavior of Arab allies and concentrating on their regional and international actions. One indicator of the success of Arab pressure against democracy promotion has been the remarkable decrease since 2006 of critical statements by the Bush administration about domestic politics in Arab moderate states, despite clear signs of backsliding, particularly in Egypt and Jordan. Repressive measures against opposition movements, predominantly the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and the Jordanian Islamic Action Front, as well as undemocratic constitutional changes have been publicly ignored by the Bush administration. The United States also did not find strong partners in its attempt to promote democracy from the bottom up by stimulating secular opposition parties and a lively civil society. Although most Arab countries allow a degree of pluralism in the political system and some space for the opposition, the main beneficiaries of American democratization efforts have not been the liberal and secular parties, but rather the Islamist ones, which are larger and better organized and therefore more capable of taking advantage of opportunities, despite the much harsher security measures that regimes generally impose on them. The secular opposition embodies values acceptable to the United States, but it has proven to be the weakest of all political forces—indeed, it is not an exaggeration to talk of a crisis of secular political parties. Election results across the region have exposed their organizational and programmatic weaknesses. Many of them have stagnant or even declining constituencies, whereas Islamist movements have growing and increasingly well-organized ones.