Islamism, the Arab Spring, and the Failure of America’s Do-Nothing Policy in the Middle East

Excerpts of an article in the Atlantic that was adapted from Shadi Hamid’s book, Temptations of Power: Islamists and Illiberal Democracy in a New Middle East (Oxford University Press), which is now out in paperback.

Excerpts from the article:

 “Islamists were fighting on two fronts: not just repressive regimes, but their international backers as well,” referring to Western countries backing secular autocratic regimes in the Middle East. Hamdi Hassan, the head of the Brotherhood’s parliamentary bloc in 2010, told Shadi Hamin “The solution is in the ‘Brotherhood approach.’ We focus on the individual, then the family, then society.”

 

“Algerian Islamists were ascendant in 1991 and the military intervened to stop them; something eerily similar happened in 2013 after the Muslim Brotherhood came to power in Egypt through democratic elections.”

 

“In Egypt, the 2011 uprising was effectively internationalized, with foreign media devoting countless hours to covering every turn and, in the process, putting the issue at the top of the Western policy agenda.”

 

“In recent years, a growing academic literature has pointed to the role of international actors in bringing down autocrats, though the focus tends to be on non-Middle Eastern cases. In their 2010 book, the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way provide extensive empirical support to what many have long argued. They write that “it was an externally driven shift in the cost of suppression, not changes in domestic conditions, that contributed most centrally to the demise of authoritarianism in the 1980s and 1990s.” Levitsky and Way find that “states’ vulnerability to Western democratizing pressure ... was often decisive.”

 

In the Middle East, the critical role of foreign powers was confirmed, once again, during Egypt’s July 2013 military coup and its tragic aftermath. In the two and a half years leading up to the removal of President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, the United States failed to put any significant pressure on the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which dominated—and corrupted—Egypt’s transition in those early, critical days after the revolution. The United States wagered that a military-led transition would facilitate (and manage) the democratization process while safeguarding American interests. SCAF, though, grew increasingly autocratic, culminating in one very bad week in June 2012 when the military and its allies dissolved parliament, reinstated martial law, and decreed a constitutional addendum stripping the presidency of many of its powers.

 

After the July 3 coup and subsequent crackdown against the Brotherhood and other Islamists, the U.S. response was muted. Despite a legal obligation to suspend aid in the event of a coup, the Obama administration, along with most of Congress, insisted on the importance of maintaining the flow of military aid to Egypt. A month after the military’s intervention—and in the lead-up to its massacre of Morsi supporters near the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque—Secretary of State John Kerry even appeared to endorse the coup, saying that the army was “in effect … restoring democracy” and averting civil war.

 

PHOTO with caption: Blood stains the ground near a poster of Mohamed Morsi after violent clashes between the Egyptian military and Morsi supporters. (Amr Abdallah Dalsh / Reuters)

 

Morsi, for example, played an important role in brokering a resolution to the Gaza crisis of November 2012. He brought Egypt closer to Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, but he did so in a way that fell well short of fundamentally challenging the U.S.-led regional order.

 

The unwillingness or inability to use American leverage to pressure Arab governments, including those with Islamist leanings, came at a cost. The United States can provide a credible threat of sanction by suspending or canceling much-needed economic assistance. Such a punitive approach can backfire, of course, given the understandable sensitivities in the region about the interference of foreign powers. A better alternative is “positive conditionality”—providing economic and political incentives for governments to meet explicit, measurable benchmarks on democratic reform.

 

C. Hulsman: This is an article in favor of US intervention to bring down autocrats. The interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq were not particularly successful. Other examples can be given. Thus some constraint may be advised. The author used Muslim Brotherhood arguments such as that the Brotherhood came to power [Morsi was elected]  through democratic elections.  The outcome of these elections were disputed and there are good reasons to believe that Shafiq was elected and not Morsi but because both candidates were so close negotiations in the final stage resulted in Morsi taking the presidency.  See:  C. Hulsman, ‘Was president Mohammed Morsi legitimately elected?,’ Arab West Report, December 16, 2014, http://www.arabwestreport.info/year-2014/week-50/02-was-president-mohammed-morsi-legitimately-elected. The follow-up, Morsi’s declaration of November 22, 2012, was certainly not democratic. This simply writing about a democratic election without further explanations is misleading. The author states that the “military and its allies dissolved parliament” which is factually untrue. The Supreme Constitutional Court decided so. The SCAF did decree a constitutional addendum stripping the presidency of many of its powers but Morsi undid so after he came to power. The author speaks of the “July 3 coup” which is a Brotherhood formulation. Those in favor of Morsi’s removal point to the millions of demonstrators and call this a “second revolution.” This and other formulations in the text show Shadi Hamid clearly taking sides. The caption of the photo “bloodstains near a poster of Mohammed Morsi” is misleading. It should have mentioned that the poster of Morsi was placed later besides the bloodstains.

 

Morsi did not broker a resolution to the Gaza crisis of November 2012. I was then meeting with an Israeli peace activist in Egypt who was negotiating with Egyptian security and who tried to make contact with the Brotherhood which the Brotherhood rejected. Morsi was not involved.

 

This article is informed but biased towards  a Muslim Brotherhood position.

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