Is the U.S. retarding Arab reform?

from Daily Star:

Two related and important issues that are widely debated these days among analysts, citizens and foreign military invaders of the Middle East are: Why has the pace of democratic reform been so inconsistent over the years, and what is the impact of the new American policy of promoting reforms in this region? It is critically important that the political debate, and the related diplomatic and cultural negotiations between Arabs, Americans and Europeans over these issues, be conducted with much more honesty than was the case, for example, with the thin debate over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction before that country was attacked.

This trend has been driven by three related forces: homegrown demands for dignity and better governance by the citizens of the Middle East; increasingly vulnerable and more thinly legitimate Arab regimes that find it difficult to maintain the existing political and economic order; and external pressures to reform and modernize (mainly from the U.S., but also from Europe and other industrialized democracies).

In private conversations and public lectures here in Beirut this week, Hudson has outlined the strengths and weaknesses of the Arab democratic reform movement, and the role of the United States in it. Among the significant points he makes is that Arab liberalism has moved erratically in the past few decades, largely due to four factors: the strength of the authoritarian modern Arab security state, the fear of Islamists taking over political space that is opened up, the impact of economic stresses and imbalances, and the distorting effect of regional conflicts.

On the positive side, however, he points to several other trends now driving Arab reforms: the activism of a dynamic and democratic civil society, the mass media's capacity to inspire activists in one country by showing the breakthroughs of their colleagues in other Arab or foreign countries, and the structural changes required of governments if they wish to join global trading systems such as the World Trade Organization or bilateral free-trade agreements. On top of this, and perhaps most importantly, he says, authoritarian Arab regimes and leaders themselves sense their own growing weakness and inability to maintain their one-party power structures, because they see that their countries simply do not function very well in today's globalized, market-driven world.

Hudson clearly warns against the U.S. embracing Arab democrats and reformers too closely and "contaminating" them, because of the region's widespread deep suspicions of American motives and anger at American policies, especially in Palestine and Iraq. Many Arabs, he notes, fear that Washington's calls for reform hide deeper aims of regime change in other countries in the region.

Arab democratization will also bring in changes that might appear to contradict existing U.S. policies or values, including democratically elected religious leaderships with close links to Iran, governance systems based on sectarian, religious and ethnic sharing of the pie, and Arab state policies that are critical of the U.S.