The United States and the Arab Spring: Threats and Opportunities in a Revolutionary Era

46 Pages·2013·3.446 MB·English

by  Mark L. Haas

the
United States
and the
arab spring
Threats and Opportunities
in a Revolutionary Era
Mark L. Haas
Duquesne University
New York London
First published 2014 by Westview Press
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The United States
and the Arab Spring
Threats and Opportunities in a Revolutionary Era
In June 2009, President Barack Obama gave a major agenda-setting speech in
Cairo, Egypt. The president asserted that the spread to Muslim-majority countries
of democratic “governments that reflect the will of the people” would be a key out-
come that would make these states “ultimately more stable, successful and secure.”
This development would also result in improved relations with the United States.
Obama promised to “welcome all elected, peaceful governments—provided they
govern with respect for all their people.”1Given that the Middle East and North
Africa at the time were widely deemed to be the least politically free regions in the
world, no one expected Obama’s hope for the spread of democracy at the expense
of dictatorial regimes to be realized anytime soon.
Events that seemed revolutionary in every sense of the word ran counter to this
expectation. Massive political protests against authoritarian governments began in
Tunisia in December 2010. By 2013, protests in varying degrees of intensity, but
all of major significance, had occurred in Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait,
Libya, Morocco, Syria, Sudan, Tunisia, and Yemen. By early 2012, dictators in
Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen had been forced from power, and competitive
elections followed in the first three of these countries.
1
2 The united states and the arab spring
This chapter has three primary purposes. First, I summarize the major political
consequences of the Arab Spring protests in North Africa and the Middle East.
Second, I analyze how and why US leaders responded to these developments.
Prominent in this analysis is a detailed examination of the threats and opportunities
to US interests created by the uprisings. I conclude the chapter with a discussion
of various policies the United States might adopt to best advance US security in a
pos t –Arab Spring era.
I begin my analysis with an exploration of the Obama administration’s reactions
to the first set of Middle East mass protests that occurred during his presidency;
these took place not in an Arab country but in Iran. The lessons learned from these
demonstrations would have major effects on how Obama responded to the upris-
ings that occurred across the Arab world beginning in 2010.
Obama’s Transformation:
From Persian Protests to the Arab Spring
Although Obama in his 2009 speech in Cairo had called for the spread of democ-
racy in the Muslim world, his administration’s reactions to the Arab Spring begin-
ning in late 2010 were most likely not the same as they would have been nearly
two years earlier. Obama came into office believing that the George W. Bush ad-
ministration’s “freedom agenda”—meaning the use or threat of force to help spread
liberal regimes in the Middle East—had been a mistake.2 He thought his prede-
cessor’s policies had resulted in a backlash against the United States that had left it
isolated and reviled throughout much of the Islamic world. Thus to restore Amer-
ica’s reputation, it was necessary to adopt less forceful and more accommodating
actions.
Obama’s dominant foreign policy inclinations—especially during his first year
as president—reinforced the conclusions resulting from the perceived failings of
the Bush administration. Obama’s dominant view of international relations was
that what united countries—even ideological rivals—was or should be more im-
portant to their interactions than what divided them. According to international
relations scholar Henry Nau, Obama “has a coherent worldview that highlights
‘shared’ interests defined by interconnected material problems such as climate, en-
ergy, and nonproliferation and de-emphasizes ‘sovereign’ interests that separate
countries along political and moral lines. He tacks away from topics that he believes
divide nations—democracy, defense, markets, and unilateral leadership—and to-
ward topics that he believes integrate them—stability, disarmament, regulations,
and diplomacy.”3If shared interests are more important to states’ foreign policies
than divisive ones, including disputes due to the effects of ideological differences,
then policies of engagement should dominate America’s relations with rivals, and
democracy promotion as a means of advancing US security owing to the creation
of shared values with others is not paramount. This perspective helps explain
Obama’s call for the spread of democracy in his Cairo speech as more of a human
rights than a security issue.
Obama’s Transformation: From Persian Protests to the Arab Spring 3
To the Obama administration, in sum, the use of force in the service of the
spread of democracy was both ineffective (as the Bush administration’s policies had
apparently demonstrated) and less necessary than some believed because the United
States possessed important common interests with illiberal regimes, which could
be more determinative of relations than ideological differences. Pragmatic eco-
nomic and political considerations, most notably a weakened US economy due to
the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession, as well as public opinion polls
that showed the American public was strongly opposed to additional military in-
terventions, reinforced the inclination against aggressive foreign policies. Obama
succinctly expressed his views in his Cairo speech when he asserted that despite
the benefits of democracy, “no system of government can or should be imposed
upon one nation by any other.”4
Occuring during his first year as president, the most important test case in the
Middle East for Obama’s beliefs in the power of engagement and his rejection of
the use of force to alter others’ regimes was Iran.5 In 2009, the president made a
number of important conciliatory gestures toward Iran that were designed to reduce
hostilities. Two months after his inauguration, Obama made a videotaped message
directed to the Iranians. In the message, the president took an unusual step for a
high-ranking US official by referring to Iran as “the Islamic Republic of Iran,” which
was a nod to the legitimacy of the Iranian Islamist revolution. Obama offered the
promise of a “new day” in US-Iranian relations, which would allow for “renewed
exchanges among our people, and greater opportunities for partnership and com-
merce.” The process of improving relations, the president said, “will not be advanced
by threats. We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual
respect.”6 Most important for this chapter’s purposes, the president offered little
criticism of the major irregularities, likely involving fraud, in the June 2009 Iranian
presidential elections and the subsequent violent crackdown on popular protests of
the election results. Obama did call for the peaceful resolution of disputes, but he
stated that he did not want to be seen as meddling in Iranian domestic affairs.7
Obama also promised to continue to engage Iran despite the fraudulent elections
and subsequent violence against those who protested them.8
Instead of supporting the Iranian protesters and the reformist political candi-
dates they championed, Obama minimized the differences between Iranian polit-
ical hard-liners and reformers. Obama officials claimed that the international policy
differences between Iranian conservatives and reformers were slight. Consequently,
the United States had little strategic interest in helping reformers augment their
power. In a June 2009 interview, Obama stated that from a national security per-
spective, there was little difference for America if the hard-liner Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad or the reformer Mir Hussein Mousavi won the 2009 presidential
elections. “Either way,” asserted Obama, the United States is “going to be dealing
with an Iranian regime that has historically been hostile to the United States, that
has caused some problems in the neighborhood and is pursuing nuclear weapons.”
Indeed, because Iranian reformers and conservatives were likely to pursue similar
international policies toward America despite their domestic differences, in some
4 The united states and the arab spring
ways it was better for the United States to have Iranian conservatives win the elec-
tion. As a senior Obama official told the Wall Street Journal: “Had there been a
transition to a new government [if Mousavi won], a new president wouldn’t have
emerged until August. In some respects, [Ahmadinejad’s victory] might allow Iran
to engage the international community quicker.”9
Obama’s engagement of the Iranian regime did not succeed in improving rela-
tions. To the contrary, Iran’s most powerful leaders responded to Obama’s overtures
with contempt and threats. In reaction to Obama’s videotaped message to Iran,
Supreme Leader Khamenei claimed that there was no change in US-Iranian rela-
tions and that Obama had “insulted the Islamic Republic of Iran from the first
day.”10At the end of June 2009, after his reelection, President Ahmadinejad stated,
“Without a doubt, Iran’s new government will have a more decisive and firmer ap-
proach toward the West.” “This time [Iran’s] reply will be harsh” to make the West
regret its “meddlesome stance” toward Iranian politics.11(This charge of meddling
was made despite Obama’s unwillingness to interfere in Iran’s politics in support
of the 2009 protestors.) By the fall of 2009, Khamenei and other ideological con-
servatives labeled Obama’s outreach policies ones of “soft war” (i.e., efforts at ide-
ological subversion) that were in some ways more dangerous than the Bush’s
administration’s conventional threats.12These charges continued into 2010.13
Obama’s engagement of the Iranian government not only failed with respect to
Iran’s hard-line leaders but also angered many of those Iranians who were sympathetic
to the reform movement. Many Iranian reformers advocated that the Obama ad-
ministration take more forceful actions against the Iranian government after Ah-
madinejad’s reelection in 2009. One reformist activist told the Los Angeles Timesin
September 2009 that he welcomed more international “pressure on Ahmadinejad’s
government. This is good for the Green wave [i.e., reformers] in Iran and the [do-
mestic] rift will increase for sure if pressure builds up.”14One of the slogans shouted
in the streets of Tehran in massive demonstrations held in November 2009 was:
“Obama: either with the murderers or with us.”15The protestors, according to ob-
servers of the movement, “perceive that [Obama’s] international engagement with
Mr. Ahmadinejad has come at the expense of their human rights . . . Many in the
Green Movement [believe] that experience has shown that Mr. Ahmadinejad is nei-
ther willing nor able to change course. Instead, they would like to see the interna-
tional community exert pressure on the regime through a progressive set of smart,
vigorous and targeted sanctions and more forceful advocacy of human rights.”16
Obama’s failures toward Iran in 2009 apparently had a significant impact on
how he responded to the protest movements of the Arab Spring beginning in 2010.
Two lessons from the experience with Iran were particularly important. First, the
Iranian case demonstrated that many who are struggling for greater protection of
their rights do not consider US support of their efforts to be “meddling” that taints
their cause (as quoted above, for example, Iranian protestors welcomed greater US
involvement in support of their efforts). As one Obama official stated after the
Arab Spring uprisings began: “There was a feeling of ‘we ain’t gonna be behind the
curve on this again’” (as the United States found itself in the Iranian protests of
Obama’s Transformation: From Persian Protests to the Arab Spring 5
2009). Another senior aide similarly explained that Obama in 2011 believed “that
the [Arab Spring] protestors want to hear from the American president, but not
just any American president. They want to hear from this American president.” In
other words, they wanted to hear from the first black president, who symbolized
the possibility of change.17
The second lesson that Obama seems to have learned from his failed Iranian
policies was that supporting democratic movements was important not only for
improving others’ basic rights (which is the outcome that Obama’s Cairo speech
emphasized) but also for America’s security. Not only are societies that better pro-
tect basic human rights likely to be more stable and peaceful, at least in the long
run (analyzed more extensively below), but ideological differences among political
groups matter greatly in terms of the level of hostility that is likely to be directed
at the United States. Contrary to Obama’s assertion quoted earlier, there were im-
portant foreign policy differences between Iranian ideological hard-liners and more
liberal reformers.18 Ideological hard-liners were likely to be highly hostile to the
United States even if being engaged, reformers much less so. Thus it was in Amer-
ica’s security interests to see more liberal groups come to power in Muslim-majority
countries.
This second lesson resulted in a new narrative at the time of the Arab Spring
uprisings. As David Sanger of theNew York Timeswrote, “in his first two years in
office, Mr. Obama said little about democratic transformations as a core goal . . .
now [in 2011] he has begun speaking of them as a central part of the ‘alternative
narrative’ to [that of ideological enemies, e.g.,] Al Qaeda’s theology, or Iran’s.”19
Or as Deputy National Security Advisor Benjamin J. Rhodes stated: “The presi-
dent wanted to clearly and unequivocally embrace change in the region [the Mid-
dle East and North Africa]. It was necessary for him to step back and say that not
only does he support the aspirations of the people we have seen in the streets, but
supporting them is in our long-term interest.”20According to Obama in a major
policy speech given in May 2011, which laid out his administration’s vision for
US-Middle Eastern relations in light of the Arab Spring protests: “We must ac-
knowledge that a strategy based solely upon the narrow pursuit of [material]
interests . . . will only feed the suspicion [among the peoples of the Middle East]
that has festered for years that the United States pursues our interests at their
expense . . . [As a result,] a failure to change our approach threatens a deepening
spiral of division between the United States and the Arab world . . . Our support
for [universal liberal] principles is not a secondary interest. Today I want to make
it clear that it is a top priority that must be translated into concrete actions, and
supported by all of the diplomatic, economic and strategic tools at our disposal . . .
It will be the policy of the United States to promote reform across the region, and
to support transitions to democracy . . . The United States of America was
founded on the belief that people should govern themselves. And now we cannot
hesitate to stand squarely on the side of those who are reaching for their rights,
knowing that their success will bring about a world that is more peaceful, more
stable, and more just.”21