A View From the Arab World

BEIRUT -- Now that the Republican and Democratic parties in the United States have chosen their presidential candidates, we might expect some thoughtful discussion of the issues that concern the American people at home and abroad. Viewed from the Arab world and the wider Middle East -- including Turkey, Israel and Iran -- the results of the American election will have enormous impact on the condition of this region. 

The people and leaders of the Middle East follow the US election with special interest, for three main reasons: 1) America's presence, policies and potential, i.e., its wide, deep and growing military presence and ideological ferocity in the region; 2) the Arab-Islamic-Iranian resistance to these; and 3) the potential for constructive, mutually beneficial American-Middle Eastern engagement.

The American presence in the Middle East today is much more extensive, complex, and varied than it was a few decades ago when the Arab-Israeli and the Cold War conflicts were the only defining parameters of its engagement. Today the United States fights, and foments national transformations in Iraq and Afghanistan; rhetorically nudges Arab autocrats to reform (without resorting to any real muscle or sincerity); fights Islamist movements everywhere; and, essentially gives Israel everything it seeks -- militarily, economically, and diplomatically. 

The United States is not a foreign actor in the Middle East, but a leading local player. It has toppled two regimes along with their entire political orders and state structures in Afghanistan and Iraq. It has sanctioned several others in Iran, Syria, Sudan, and the Hamas-led part of Palestine. And it has made clear that it plans to stay, and throw its weight around, for many years. Its strategic aims go well beyond the traditional ones of protecting Arab allies, preserving Israel's dominance over everyone else in the region, and ensuring the free flow of oil. 

Rather than a sentinel watching over the area to protect its interests, Washington now operates more like a brain surgeon or software engineer, penetrating deep into the inner workings of Middle Eastern state and governance systems, to transform them into something more compatible with US values, interests, and worldview. 

With dozens of military bases in the region and 170,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States is the leading regional player. Along with Israel, Turkey and Iran, it is the fourth party of the quadripartite security architecture of the Middle East, and the most aggressive one in many respects. The next US president could well determine if and which Middle Eastern societies go the troubled way of Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and other fractured lands. 

Consequently, the Arab-Islamic-Iranian people of this region have not remained docile in the face of this new reality. A few people fight back militarily when they encounter direct American or Israeli military occupation. But most react peacefully and politically. 

The most available and meaningful option available to them is to join mainstream Islamist, tribal, or political movements that are primarily defined by their opposition to the United States, Israel, and the dominant ruling Arab regimes. The single most powerful political force in the Middle East in the past decade, consequently, has been Islamo-Arab nationalism. 

This is predominantly a reactionary movement, defined by resistance to the prevailing rule of Arab-American-Israeli political ideologies, which touches the concerns and fears of many ordinary Arabs and Iranians. But it probably has a limited lifespan, because it does not provide a clear, credible policy program for constructing stable, prosperous, liberal and tolerant societies that the majority of people in this region aspire to. 

Defiance and resistance are exhilarating short-term stimuli and endeavors but they are not sustainable, long-term policy programs or national visions. They will persist, however, as long as American-Israeli and most Arab regime policies continue in their current form, resulting in sustained violence and waste for all concerned.

This need not be the case. Tensions between the United States and assorted Middle Eastern governments are offset by considerable convergences in the values, behavior and aspirations of the people of both societies. Numerous public opinion surveys -- not to mention everyday experiences among those Americans, Arabs, Iranians and Turks who live together in the Middle East -- indicate beyond doubt that these peoples suffer no serious cultural clash of values. 

The existing problems reflect deep differences over policies, not values. More sensible and democratic Arab and Iranian state policies, along with less violent and predatory American and Israeli policies, would quickly reverse the recent trajectory of anger, fear and violence that has defined many US-Middle East dynamics (such as the policy changes, for example, that transformed the American-Vietnamese relationship in the past generation). 

The people of the Middle East and the United States have enormous pent-up demand -- and a strong inclination -- to embrace each other in the political, economic, social and even security fields, once they all enjoy state policies based on respect and equality, rather than the current horror show of Arab autocracy, Iranian thugocracy, American militancy, and Israeli colonialism.