Another week of 2011 has gone by, and another slew of milestones in Arab politics as well. After a period of vacillation and indecision, NATO has started a bombing campaign in Libya in an effort to turn the tide against Muammar al-Qaddhafi. Bahrain took advantage of the international community's fixation on Libya to unleash a second brutal crackdown on protesters and Shi'i dissidents, inviting GCC soldiers -- mainly from Saudi Arabia and the UAE -- to assist in maintaining control. Faint signs of discontent in Syria turned into the first large-scale protests in several decades, which have provoked an unsurprisingly violent government crackdown. Finally, Egyptian voters turned out in massive numbers for what may have been the first truly free poll in their lifetimes, a constitutional referendum that was approved by a sizable majority.
I wrote several weeks ago that the Arab democracy movements have entered a second phase marked by an authoritarian backlash against uprisings in Bahrain, Yemen, and Libya, and conflict within pro-reform factions and elements of the old regimes in Egypt and Tunisia. It is now widely acknowledged that the wave of people power that swept away Zine el Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak has broken on a wall of determined autocrats who are willing to use all means necessary to retain power. In Libya and Bahrain, regime leadership have declared war on their own people. Violence is escalating in Yemen and Syria as well. While the pace of protest movements has slowed, regime responses have intensified and shown that superior firepower may still trump populist uprisings, at least in the short term.
This second phase of the new Arab struggle for self-determination has also made the United States look increasingly irrelevant to regional dynamics. A number of events make the United States seem feckless and lost in a rapidly changing environment: apparent indecision over intervention in Libya, coupled with unwillingness to be the public leader of operations there; Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's cold reception in both Egypt and Tunisia; Bahrain's disregard for American calls for reform, and the intervention of the GCC in Bahrain without informing the United States of its plans all. The United States' two most significant Arab allies -- Egypt and Saudi Arabia -- appear to be drifting away from American influence. Bahrain, the seat of American naval power in the Persian Gulf, has openly flouted American wishes with the encouragement and direct assistance of other American allies. Meanwhile, relations with an increasingly extreme Israeli administration grow more strained by the day, and Israel's own strategic relevance may be diminishing as the Arab world reforges itself and regional dynamics continue to transform. On the surface, it seems that these events will add up to a weakening of American influence in the Middle East, and perhaps the end of American hegemony there altogether.
In the near future it seems almost certain that American influence will ebb in the Middle East. The United States is a dominant foreign power in the region; change in the status quo threatens that dominance. However, I am not buying into the American decline just yet. Though recent events in the Arab world have demonstrated the limits of American influence, they do not mean that the United States is irrelevant, or that it cannot play a role in the region going forward. While people in Egypt and Tunisia are not amused by the United States' sudden commitment to democracy in their respective countries, and while they may be wary of American intentions, they still share key interests with the United States, and they need American assistance, especially economic support.
In general, the idea that American relations with Middle Eastern states were based only on cozy relationships with autocrats strikes me as terribly naive. States do not cooperate out of friendship for each other, but out of self-interest. In other words, the Saudis, or the Egyptians, or the Jordanians do not work closely with the United States because they like us so much (they don't), but because collaboration works to their advantage. American relations with states throughout the Middle East are based on mutual interests which will not disappear along with the autocrats. The idea that these leaders are entirely deferent to American wishes is also a falsehood. In fact, they routinely ignore the wishes of American policymakers when their interests contradict those of the United States. One recent and particularly unpleasant example may be found in the collusion between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain against the Bahraini pro-democracy movement. The Bahraini royal family has done away with all liberal or moderate affectations even while the United States urged them to respond to popular demands for reform. Saudi Arabia has blatantly ignored American wishes and acted in its own interests in this case as well.
The United States has formed important alliances with autocratic states throughout the Middle East. These alliances are based on mutual interests, many -- though admittedly not all -- of which would remain if these same autocrats were swept out of power. Of course, aspects of these relationships will have to change, but in the end the United States has a great deal to offer emerging democracies in the Middle East. The hypothetical end of despotism in the Middle East (at the moment that is still a distant and highly improbable eventuality) does not mean the end of American influence. In fact, it is a new and more promising beginning not just for the Arab people but for American interests.
The entire reason I argue the United States should promote democracy in the Middle East is because it is beneficial to American interests. Those who bemoan the loss of close relations with people like Hosni Mubarak and the Saudi King Abdullah should think twice about just how valuable American relations with such regimes could be in the future. Alliance with these autocrats has already been counterproductive in many ways for years now. Lacking legitimacy and popular support, these regimes have become corrupt, ossified wards of American largesse. They have failed to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict, counter the growing influence of Iran, or effectively combat Islamic extremism -- in fact their continued leadership has exacerbated these problems. They have led an economic and social decline that benefits no one but American adversaries and a self-interested elite.
Yet paradoxically the current upheavals throughout the Arab world demonstrate the value of American power in the region and its importance going forward. Though the United States is superficially filling an ancillary role during NATO operations in Libya, it is the critical strategic power. American weapons, American money, and American strategic objectives are the driving force behind the no-fly zone in Libya, because the United States is quite simply the only nation powerful enough to manage it (keep in mind that 75% of NATO's defense budget is funded by the United States). In neighboring Tunisia and Egypt, American economic aid, and to a lesser extent political influence, is crucial to nascent reform movements. For better or worse, the United States has contributed greatly to the current regional outlook, and it is still by far the most powerful single actor in the region.
The current crisis threatens the strategically favorable status quo shaped by American foreign policy. However, that is no reason to lament the old system. Crisis creates opportunity, and the United States needs to seize it by altering its outdated approach to the Middle East. Strong democracies and effective governance in the Arab world will benefit American strategic and economic interests more than the illegitimate and repressive states of the past and present. Trade-offs and short term sacrifices will be necessary, but ultimately these are tolerable for a still-dominant hegemonic power. Of course, if the United States throws its weight behind continued autocracy, or simply sits on the sideline, then the short-term erosion of its influence will soon become permanent.
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