What About That "Democracy" Business?

It appears that Washington's burning desire to spread democracy through the Middle East has been doused. Its ME initiatives in tatters, the Bush administration is now content with stability rather than democracy according to the New York Times' analysis of Condi Rice's visit to Egypt:

"In the days before Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice met with officials in Egypt, the news media here were filled with stories detailing charges of corruption, cronyism, torture and political repression.

"Cellphone videos posted on the Internet showed the police sodomizing a bus driver with a broomstick. Another showed the police hanging a woman by her knees and wrists from a pole for questioning. A company partly owned by a member of the governing party distributed tens of thousands of bags of contaminated blood to hospitals around the country. And just 24 hours before Ms. Rice arrived, the authorities arrested a television reporter on charges of harming national interests by making a film about police torture. The reporter was released, but the authorities kept the tapes.

"Ms. Rice, who once lectured Egyptians on the need to respect the rule of law, did not address those domestic concerns. Instead, with Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit by her side, she talked about her appreciation for Egypt’s support in the region.

"It was clear that the United States — facing chaos in Iraq, rising Iranian influence and the destabilizing Israeli-Palestinian conflict — had decided that stability, not democracy, was its priority, Egyptian political commentators, political aides and human rights advocates said.

"But the calculus of stabilization is complicated and fraught in a region as fragile as the Middle East, where interests are defined by religion, geography, geopolitics and political opportunism. And it is not at all clear that the new (old) approach will work. The United States is so unpopular in the region now, many here say, that its support is enough to undermine a government’s legitimacy with its public.

“'The former pressure was an illusion and the lack of any pressure now will push the crisis between the people and their rulers to the edge,' said Ibrahim Eissa, the editor of Al Dustoor, a weekly independent newspaper in Egypt that is critical of the government. That eliminates 'all false appearances that the Arab regimes are against the United States in defense of their independent sovereignty and that the United States is supporting democracy when it is in strict alliance with the oppressive regimes,' he added.

"The dynamics of the region have also changed over the years, and it is no longer clear what the payoff is for Washington in return for overlooking rights violations. It is not certain, for example, that the Egypt of 2007 can deliver the kind of influence it once wielded when it was seen as the political and cultural center of the Arab world. Egypt has failed to calm fighting between Palestinian factions, or to help negotiate the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for an Israeli soldier held by Palestinian militants.

"At the same time, where Washington was criticized in the past for supporting repressive governments, it risks even sharper criticism now because it made such a public commitment to promoting democracy."

There was a time when those committed to democracy in the Muslim world thought they could rely on the United States to assist them and shield them from repression. Now that the US is in retreat it won't be long before another nation seeks to exploit this opportunity and steps into the breach. Iran perhaps or even China? We probably won't have to wait very long before a shift emerges.