America’s middle east lesson: Karim Souaid interviewed

openDemocracy: Why do you think this particular American election is especially important?

Karim Souaid: After 9/11, the man in the White House has even more economic and political influence than before in the middle east. The United States has always been a very important player in this part of the world, but after 9/11 it became a defining factor in shaping the region’s future.

From my work as a banker in the region, which includes daily communication with government officials, I can feel how United States policy impacts more and more on the lives of the governments, and therefore the societies, of the middle east.

openDemocracy: Does this include the new government in Iraq?

Karim Souaid: Absolutely. I think that the interim government in Iraq is definitely playing the US card. The US military presence in Iraq has helped to oust one of the most ruthless dictators in the history of the world, as well as of the region. This is a radical change: any overthrow of dictatorship in the middle east is a victory not just for the United States, but most importantly for the region’s people.

openDemocracy: Many people would regard themselves as, in this context, democrats but not pro–American; they would say that a victory for democracy is not necessarily one for the US and its policies – especially in the light of a war justified by lies over weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Karim Souaid: There are three camps over Iraq: the “proactives”, the US and Britain, with Australia as a distant third; “people in denial”, all the Arab countries; and the “backbenchers”, principally Germany and France.

The first camp thought that a pre–emptive war on Iraq would create a regime change that would ultimately lead to a democratic society. The second camp feared the war’s violence but were also disturbed that the cosy status quo they had enjoyed (with the help of the US) for twenty years would end. The third camp felt that they would be bypassed by the Americans, and left without a clear purpose in the region.

Iraq has left “old” Europe in an intellectual quagmire because it can’t deny that change in the middle east has to happen yet doesn’t have any positive programme to encourage it. This is why you see Germany and France engaged more in Afghanistan and Iran – it is a way of getting on the bandwagon, while avoiding the hot subject of Iraq itself.

openDemocracy: But doesn’t European opposition – and John Kerry’s own doubts over the rush to war – owe less to a bandwagon effect and more to concern about how countries across the world after 9/11 can cooperate in the fight against terror? This is quite different from the process of democratising the middle east, which arguably will only be postponed or disabled by this kind of unilateral invasion.

Karim Souaid: I think this argument can be turned upside down. First, terrorism did not start on 9/11 or after the invasion of Iraq. I lived in Lebanon since 1964, throughout its civil war, and experienced terrorism through car bombs and explosions in Jordan, Egypt and the Gulf countries – all decades before 9/11 and the Iraq war.

Second, the Europeans underestimate how the vulnerability felt by the US on 9/11 made it determined to initiate a process of change in the region where the attack originated that would make a recurrence impossible. I really believe that the position of Europe will have to change in a way that will require it to establish a new accommodation with America.

Third, the war in Iraq was in the making twelve years ago. Then, the first President Bush made a huge mistake in not pursuing Saddam Hussein into Baghdad. Later, Bill Clinton’s containment policy failed. Iraq was a timebomb. I won’t argue for WMD or the link between Iraq and al–Qaida, but I would say that the middle east is a breeding–ground for terrorism. And this results from unfair policies by its own governments rather than from Israel or the US.

openDemocracy: So you don’t think that the second President Bush was in any way strategically mistaken in what he did?

Karim Souaid: Absolutely not.

Between denial and modernity

openDemocracy: But don’t you feel, given that the Iraq adventure has generated extreme opposition worldwide, that it would be better for John Kerry now to be elected rather than to see a continuation of current polarisation?

Karim Souaid: If Kerry is elected, I think there is a risk of a backtracking from the “policy push” of the Bush administration. That would be very disappointing for people in the middle east who are anticipating serious, drastic change. Kerry favours more of a multipolar, consensual democracy. That’s the last thing the region needs. The middle east needs to look its problems in the face and act upon them; that requires determination, leadership, an end to denial about its true condition, and (on the American side) stubbornness in diplomacy – let the rest follow.

openDemocracy: You say this action must come from middle-eastern states, yet it seems to an outsider that the stubbornness of American policy is simply hardening attitudes across the region, and not actually stimulating change in the Arab regimes surrounding Iraq.

Karim Souaid: But there are signs of change, of middle-eastern societies moving beyond their denial mode. Saudi Arabia is cracking down on terrorists; Iran is engaged in a semi–positive dialogue with Europe and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over its nuclear programme; Syria, which was in denial after 9/11 – and actually reminds me of Romania and Nicolae Ceausescu after the fall of the Berlin wall – is starting to talk about common patrols with the US along the Iraq border; and the Gulf states – Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman – are definitely breathing better now that Saddam is out.

Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria are still often rhetorically belligerent, but these societies are in the midst of an introspective review of their own flaws. In the end, that will lead to a positive revolution from within – hopefully with a bit of pushing from the outside.

openDemocracy: But isn’t there a vital distinction and an interesting contrast between Saudi Arabia and Iran? Iran’s fundamentalist revolution of 1979 had massive popular support. More recent reports suggest that the mullahs are now extremely, overwhelmingly unpopular. All the evidence I have seen suggests that the invasion of Iraq has strengthened the mullahs and further blocked any political reform process. The dynamics of change in Saudi Arabia, whatever they are, are very different.

Karim Souaid: There’s a lot of truth in that. Yes, the Iranian regime is feeling more secure, because both Sunni threats on its borders – the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq – have now been conveniently eliminated by the Bush administration. But this still leaves a huge, sharp generational conflict within Iran.

I believe that the United States has realised that there is a very strong national sentiment in Iran, and that it needs to encourage an implosion, not explosion, there. They are trying as much as possible to discredit the mullahs, but not to discredit the country. It has learned its lesson in Iran, and since 1979 has been smart in being firm but not harsh in its policy. America knows that the silver lining in the Persian Gulf will come first from Tehran, not from anywhere else in the region – including Saudi Arabia.

A foundation of justice

openDemocracy: In the larger strategic sense of which we have been speaking, why do you think Kerry will be worse than Bush?

Karim Souaid: Democrats have traditionally been more pro–Israel than Republicans: a simplification, but one present in everyone’s mind in the middle east. Kerry is the only person who drove an Israeli plane over an Arab country (Egypt), in the 1970s; he has the political character of an AIPAC supporter, someone who would not compromise the security of Israel. At the same time, he is unknown in the region in terms of foreign policy, while the (albeit chequered) experience of Bush has now lasted four years.

openDemocracy: The implication that Kerry would be worse or at least no better than Bush collides with the widespread perception of the Bush administration as one which stole its own election; which lies to its own population about why it invaded Iraq; and which is an anti–democratic force in its own country and across the west. If that is the case, then it can’t possibly be the orchestrator of democracy across the middle east.

Karim Souaid: I cannot speak with authority about the Florida vote in 2000, or whether there were intelligence flaws or intentional lies about WMD. But in relation to the middle east, I can say that democracy is a gradual process that takes decades – and that the Bush administration is taking the first kick at dictatorship. It’s crumbling the first block into a concrete wall of denial by the Arab countries about modernity, and how much they have to become accountable to their people.

If even part of what the United States promises is achieved – in terms of a rule of law, women’s rights, elections – then it is a start. But, as I said earlier, we have to do our own part. What happened in Iraq is a very harsh lesson, but if you don’t make necessary change internally, change will be forced upon you.

America has inflicted probably many wrongs and few rights in the middle east, but one of the “rights” that it has now taken to heart is that it cannot afford to allow rogue, terrorist–producing regimes anymore. It has had disappointments in the past in trying to facilitate modernity via both secular dictatorships (Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and to an extent Turkey) and autocracies (Iran, Saudi Arabia). America has now realised that neither autocracies, theocracies nor secular dictatorships will achieve modern, stable, statehood. What will is probably something in between – a rule of law that is ingrained into the justice system.

Justice in Arab and Islamic culture is more important than freedom and democracy. Power in the middle east has been personalised for 2,000 years. The Americans – who have tried every other system, and are also acting now not out of choice but out of lack of choice – should focus on building a rule of law, rather than western–style democracy.

There is a echo here of American foreign policy in Latin America during the cold war, when social polarisation left no room for a rule–of–law–supporting middle class. In the middle east today, I think that the trend is away from extremism, militant Islam, and secular dictatorship towards new, middle–class–based societies – as in Afghanistan under Hamid Karzai or Iraq under Iyad Allawi.

openDemocracy: But Allawi started by banishing al–Jazeera – not exactly progressive?

Karim Souaid: Nobody is going to banish al–Jazeera. Al–Jazeera is playing an interesting tune in all parts of the world. It has sponsored voices, other TV stations, more moderate than itself. Allawi is smart enough to realise that in the age of the satellite dish and internet, he can’t ban anything - and that the best means of responding to a bad press from al–Jazeera is to do better on the ground.

openDemocracy: So, to conclude, there’s no question in your mind that you would like to see a Bush victory because, across the middle east, that is what is needed to sustain the momentum of the process you have described?

Karim Souaid: Crystal. That’s my view, my instinct and gut feeling. We need a continuity of the policy, albeit with more cooperation between the US and Europe – which we have seen recently over Afghanistan, Haiti, and now with the United Nations Security Council resolution 1559 on Lebanon and Syria, which was spearheaded by France and the US.

I do believe that the transatlantic divide is narrowing. It’s natural that shared principles and values that have been defended on either side of the Atlantic for so many years will lead to the restoration of a unified policy in the middle east. The style may remain different, and for one reason: 9/11 happened in New York, not Paris. This explains both the difference in sentiment and the difference in the time taken to catch up with the new threat to the world.