The irony now is obvious: George W. Bush as a force for emancipation in Muslim lands, and Barack Hussein Obama as a messenger of the old, settled ways. Thus the "parochial" man takes abroad a message that Muslims and Arabs did not have tyranny in their DNA, and the man with Muslim and Kenyan and Indonesian fragments in his very life and identity is signaling an acceptance of the established order.
—Fouad Ajami commenting on President Barack Obama's interview with Al-Arabiya TV
In the wake of the US invasion (or liberation) of Iraq and the launching of the Bush administration's "Freedom Agenda," some scholars who had previously doubted the capacity of the Arab world to democratize became converts to Bush's neo-Wilsoniansm.
One interesting example of this conversion is Fouad Ajami. I recall attending a session at SAIS in 1992 during which Dr. Ajami expressed skepticism regarding democracy in the Arab world. This perspective seemed to derive from an unsparingly negative view of Arab culture. Some even branded Ajami with the dreaded label "Orientalist."
If consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, Ajami's conversion was, in and of itself, not a bad thing. The question is whether such a conversion is based on a well thought out position. I worry about the sudden leap from a narrowly cultural view that holds that authoritarianism is intrinsic to Arab society, to an equally expansive, neo-Wilsonianism that insists that all Arabs want what we want. Lurking behind every universalist creed is a creeping (and often creepy) parochialism.
Still, buried deep in Ajami's polemical celebration of Bush's legacy, and his equally polemical assault on our new president, is an analysis that has some merit. For despite Obama's call for a "holistic" approach to the Muslim world, thus far the administration seems more interested in distancing itself from Bush's legacy than in forging a coherent strategy.
The biggest hole in Obama's approach is the absence of any mention of democracy, governance or—in a broader sense—the political conditions that feed what Obama calls the "demonization" of America.
Don't get me wrong: it was foolhardy to talk of democracy in the Arab world without an equally courageous effort to push for Palestinian-Israeli peace. But if Obama's Al-Arabiya interview is any guide, it appears that our new administration believes that a focus on the architecture of peace and security in the Middle East must come at the expense of political reform.
That would be a HUGE mistake. It is true that the despair of Arab youth derives partly from social and economic crisis. As Obama put it, most young people in the Middle East want a "better life." But if we think that we can alleviate poverty or raging income inequality by pushing for trade or private-sector reforms without addressing underlying political conditions, guess again: market reforms absent political representation breeds massive corruption.
The increasingly desperate story in Afghanistan points to the vital need for linking military and economic security to democracy and governance. The fight against the Taliban may indeed require more US troops, along with a greatly enhanced aid program. But neither more troops nor more aid will work absent a concerted effort to rebuild an ailing political system that most Afghans view as little more than an extortion racket.
That is why it is so disconcerting to read that in Afghanistan, "senior administration officials" plan to "put more emphasis on waging war than on development." If this is an example of a "holistic" approach, then I am a nuclear scientist.
Daniel Brumberg is an associate professor of government and director of democracy and governance studies at Georgetown University. He is also a senior nonresident fellow at the Project on Middle East Democracy. His work focuses on political, social and economic change in the Middle East and wider Muslim World.
