After an astounding winter in the Middle East, the pace of the Arab revolts has slowed. Up to this point breathtaking developments have unfolded almost every day since late December. The fall of two seemingly intractable presidents in Egypt and Tunisia caused global jubilation and a wave of optimism. These sudden triumphs of people power made regimes across the Middle East seem weak and helpless against the rising tide, and greatly raised the expectations of activists and protestors alike.
I have always felt that the status quo in the Middle East was untenable, and that change in some form was inevitable. I am far from alone in this respect -- even Arab autocrats and regime apparatchiks have acknowledged the need for reform and improved services. This sentiment is not new either -- it has been clear that the development model and political systems in the Middle East were failing since as early as the 1960s, when former Ambassador to Egypt John S. Badeau wrote "the tinder of social discontent has long been smoldering," and noted "in the long run it seems probable that radical change in some form must take place." While I do not know if Badeau thought the long run would start to come up in 2011, I can say with certainty that it is about time the authoritarian grip on the Middle East is beginning to slip.
However, the Arab revolts today have entered a new phase. The euphoria of sudden and surprising victories in Egypt and Tunisia has given way to the complicated problems of building a democratic state against the resistance of an entrenched order which wants to protect its economic and political interests. Several protest movements that began around the same time as those in Egypt and Tunisia have stalled or regressed. In Algeria, activists have been unable to outmaneuver a massive security response, and calls for reform have diminished since the military lifted its state of emergency. Jordan's protesters and politicians are no closer to serious change than they were a month ago. Yemen, teetering on the brink of failure well before protests erupted there in January, is still struggling but has a litany of problems in addition to poor governance and corruption that threaten the existence of any state at all there, let alone a stable democracy. For the moment, Bahrain has survived its own crisis, and while unrest is continuing protestors have been unable to wrest any concessions from the ruling Khalifa family. In Libya, protests quickly devolved into something more like a civil war when Muammar al-Qaddhafi allowed the massacre of demonstrators and hired mercenary armies to attack them.
It is difficult to exaggerate the enormous changes over the recent weeks. While the overall outcome of uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt remains unclear, reformers are now able to actually address the challenges of building effective political systems and functioning economies, rather than waiting on the sidelines for their strongmen to die and wondering helplessly what might replace them. Furthermore the facade of autocratic inevitability in the region has been shattered, as demonstrators fill their streets demanding change. Popular sovereignty is no longer a distant dream but a right that may be seized back from despots if they are not wiling to give it back to their citizens. The difference could hardly be larger between the previous and present atmosphere.
That said, the violent crackdowns across the region over the past weeks have shown that many states, though shaken, are not ready to give in to demands for liberalization. The new situations are considerably more tangled than those in Egypt and Tunisia. In Bahrain, conservative authoritarians in the ruling family pressed violence and a strict repression of protestors. These tactics, while they have elevated the sectarian divisions among the Sunni minority and Shi'i majority, have not quelled calls for change. Meanwhile, Libya has become the site of a humanitarian crisis with the potential to destabilize the tenuous political situations in Egypt and Tunisia, and perhaps farther afield if his mercenaries become restive and move elsewhere.
Compared to the current challenges for American foreign policy, Egypt and Tunisia were easy. A number of strategically critical states -- including Libya, Bahrain, and Yemen -- are headed toward protracted conflicts. Few policy problems can match the headache these difficulties will cause if the situation escalates in any number of these states. With formerly stalwart allies Egypt, Israel, and Saudi Arabia all more fragile now than before, the path for American policy at the regional level will be difficult to determine. At the level of individual states, policymakers face some tough choices as well.
While short-term solutions are tempting in times of uncertainty, U.S. strategists should be considering the long range consequences of their approach to these crises. In short, American policy should support the resolution of the problems that have precipitated the Arab uprisings, chiefly the moribund domestic politics of the Arab nations. In a case such as Libya, what exactly supports such a resolution is difficult to discern. The major question of policy toward Libya now is whether or not the United States should intervene directly on behalf of anti-Qaddhafi rebels. Humanitarian intervention is well outside my limited realm of expertise, so I will not recommend any approach, except to say that at the moment I doubt there is any satisfactory answer to the question of how the international community can help the Libyans. Large trade-offs are involved in intervention or non-involvement, and which of these are ultimately more tolerable may be a matter of perspective rather than objective reality.
Bahrain presents its own unique challenges. The course the United States takes there will not affect relations with only Bahrain, but with the other Gulf monarchies, who seem to have decided to treat the protests in Bahrain and Oman as the front line threat to their own regimes (the "Gulf Marshall Plan" would indicate as much, at least). This may be the case where the argument for supporting democracy is weakest. Bahrain is strategically important to the United States as the home of the Fifth Fleet, and it is a linchpin of American dominance in the Persian Gulf. It is also small in population and regional influence, and lacks the symbolic and historical importance of a state like Egypt or Iraq. Yet none of this amounts to an exception. Instability in Bahrain will continue in the absence of greater liberalization, and instability in such a crucial ally is a threat to American interests. The United States should support greater political opening in Bahrain and an improvement in sectarian relations. As a result of close relations with the Bahraini royal family, pressure from the Obama administration could go a long way to ensuring that the National Dialogue initiative is taken seriously.
Matters have become more complex as the Arab uprisings have continued, but difficulty does not diminish the importance of this moment in history for American hegemony in the Middle East. The United States needs to take advantage of this unique opportunity to change an entire region of the world for the better. In this case, success is not an option -- it is an imperative.
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