AT WAR
Time for Toppling
The arguments against
"regime change" are backward.
BY BERNARD LEWIS
Saturday, September 28, 2002 12:01 a.m. EDT
Among the many
arguments that have been adduced for not taking action
against the present regime in Iraq, two have received special
emphasis. The first is that the governments and peoples of
the Middle East attach far greater importance to the
Arab-Israeli conflict than to Iraq or any other problem in
the region, and that therefore one should begin by solving
that. The second is that even a successful attempt at regime
change in Iraq would have a dangerous destabilizing effect on
the rest of the region, and could lead to general conflict
and chaos.
The conflict with
Israel certainly receives overwhelmingly major attention in
the Arabic media, but since this is the only specific
grievance that may be publicly expressed in a region of
numerous and painful problems, that is hardly surprising. One
may therefore wonder whether Middle Eastern governments would
indeed wish for a peace settlement, which would deprive them
of this valuable safety valve, leaving them to face the
undeflected anger of their subjects, including those who live
under the rule of the Palestinian Authority. From the almost
monotonous regularity with which a series of promising peace
processes have failed at the moment when they seemed most
likely to succeed, one may be driven to the conclusion that
they prefer to keep the conflict unresolved, but at a low
level--simmering not boiling, and usefully controllable.
In any case,
requiring a settlement of the Palestine question as a
prerequisite to dealing with Saddam Hussein sends him a clear
signal that he must at all costs prevent such a solution.
Saddam Hussein has indeed already responded to that signal in
various ways, both secret and open. The most notable of his
open responses is the increase of the bounty he pays to the
families of suicide bombers from $10,000 to $25,000. This is
the most public but probably not the most important of his
contributions to the conflict. To make the settlement of that
conflict--which even in its present form is more than half a
century old--a prerequisite for any action concerning Iraq is
a sure formula for indefinite inaction.
The fear of
destabilization is both genuine and serious, and it is easy
to understand the anxiety provoked in the regimes of the
Middle East by the prospect of a regime change in Iraq. The
crucial question here is not how or by whom Saddam is
removed, but what comes in his place. The clear preference of
some influential groups in this country and elsewhere is for
his replacement to be a kinder and gentler tyrant, who would
be amenable to our interests and requirements, while avoiding
the hazards of regime change. This would certainly be the
preference of our so-called allies in the region, most of
whom would feel mortally threatened by the emergence of
anything like a democratic regime in Iraq.
But why should we
feel threatened by such a change? The overwhelming evidence
is that the majority of our terrorist enemies come from
purportedly friendly countries, and their main grievance
against us is that, in their eyes, we are responsible for
maintaining the tyrannical regimes that rule over them--an
accusation that has, to say the very least, some
plausibility. Apart from Turkey and Israel, the two countries
in the region where the governments are elected and can be
dismissed by the people, most of the countries of the Middle
East can be divided into two groups: those with what we are
pleased to call friendly governments, and therefore
increasingly hostile people who hold us responsible for the
oppression and depredations of those governments, and, on the
other hand, those with bitterly hostile governments, whose
people consequently look to us for help and liberation.
The most notable of
these are Iraq and Iran. In countries under dictatorship, the
political joke is often the only authentic and uncensored
expression of political opinion. An Iranian joke, current
during the campaign in Afghanistan, related that many
Iranians put signs on top of their houses, in English, with
the text:
"This way
please!"
It is noteworthy that
after the events of Sept. 11, great numbers of people came
out into the streets in Iranian cities, where, in defiance of
the authorities, they lit candles and held vigils in sympathy
and solidarity with the victims in New York and Washington.
This contrasted markedly with the scenes of rejoicing
elsewhere. One is often told that if we succeed in
overthrowing the regimes of what President Bush has rightly
called the "Axis of Evil," the scenes of rejoicing
in their cities would even exceed those that followed the
liberation of Kabul.
The overthrow of a
regime must inevitably raise questions, concerning first what
will follow, and then what impact this will have in
neighboring countries. A regime change may well be dangerous,
but sometimes the dangers of inaction are greater than those
of action.
There may indeed be,
as is so often said, a link between a settlement of the
Palestine conflict and a regime change in the region--but in
the reverse order to that usually adduced. It is often said
and generally agreed that democracies do not start wars.
Democratic governments are elected by the people and are
answerable to the people, and with exceedingly rare
exceptions, the people prefer peace. Even the great Winston
Churchill--certainly no warmonger, but seen by his people as
a war leader--was thrown out of power by the British people
in the general election of 1945. It is equally true, but less
recognized, that dictatorships do not make peace. The world
war started by the Axis ended with its defeat. The Cold War
started by the Soviet Union ended with its collapse.
In the same way, the
dictatorships that rule much of the Middle East today will
not, indeed cannot, make peace, because they need conflict to
justify their tyrannical oppression of their own people, and
to deflect their peoples' anger against an external enemy. As
with the Axis and the Soviet Union, real peace will come only
with their defeat or, preferably, collapse, and their
replacement by governments that have been chosen and can be
dismissed by their people and will therefore seek to resolve,
not provoke, conflicts.
Mr. Lewis,
professor emeritus of Near Eastern studies at Princeton, is
the author, most recently, of "What Went Wrong? Western
Impact and Middle Eastern Response" (Oxford, 2002).
Domino
democracy
By Saul Singer
April 7) - Bernard Lewis, the world renowned scholar of
Islamic history and the Middle East, explains to Saul Singer
why hopes for peace and democracy in the region are still
viable even in one of its darkest hours
Princeton professor Bernard Lewis has been a recognized
leader in his field for a generation, but since September 11,
he has become something of a media superstar. He has written
20 books on Islam and the Middle East, but his latest, What
Went Wrong? - an examination of how a Muslim civilization
that once rivaled the West declined into "poor, weak,
and ignorant" nations ruled by "shabby tyrannies...
modern only in their apparatus of repression and terror"
- is enjoying its tenth week on The New York Times
best-seller list.
Suddenly the world wants to understand the culture that
produced those who one fine day chose to incinerate
themselves along with some 3,000 innocent Americans. "If
the peoples of Middle East continue on their present
path," writes Lewis, "the suicide bomber may become
a metaphor for the whole region, and there will be no escape
from a downward spiral of hate and spite, rage and self-pity,
poverty and oppression."
Though some reviewers complained that the book, written
before September 11, does not give any concrete insight on
what is to be done now, a conversation with Lewis illustrates
just how timely a deep grasp of history can be. A British Jew
who has lived for years in the United States and a frequent
visitor to Israel, he arrived here last month to attend a
conference held at the Hebrew University in honor of his 86th
birthday.
Lewis seems to be in his prime. Not only does he speak in
perfectly formed, British-accented cadences, but with the
relish of a scholar who is enjoying the dramatic expansion of
his already oracle-like status. In these grim times, his
survey of prospects for the region in the near future is at
once sober and uplifting.
In a prescient article in the September 1990 issue of the
Atlantic Monthly, "The Roots of Muslim Rage," Lewis
expressed the mystery of Islam in a way that is particularly
poignant now, as Palestinians blow themselves up with
alarming regularity.
"There is something in the religious culture of Islam
which inspired," Lewis wrote, "in even the humblest
peasant or peddler, a dignity and a courtesy toward others
never exceeded and rarely equaled in other civilizations. And
yet, in moments of upheaval and disruption, when the deeper
passions are stirred, this dignity and courtesy toward others
can give way to an explosive mixture of rage and hatred which
impels even the government of an ancient and civilized
country - even the spokesman of a great spiritual and ethical
religion - to espouse kidnapping and assassination, and try
to find, in the life of their Prophet, approval and indeed
precedent for such actions."
As Westerners, we tend to think of reverence for life and
peace as natural and ubiquitous as the air we breath. Yet, in
our conversation, Lewis had a matter-of-fact explanation for
the striking duality he described over a decade ago.
"I think it is part of human nature. You find that in
all cultures in all religions at one time or another. It is
our misfortune that we have to deal with the Islamic world
when it is going through this, just as our remote ancestors
had to deal with the Crusaders in a similar mood. Islam and
Christianity have an enormous amount in common - that is I
think the main reason why they have been fighting each other
for 14 centuries: not because of their difference but because
of their resemblances."
One would think that this enmity brought by proximity might
be as intense between Islam and Judaism, given that these two
religions are perhaps the most dogmatically monotheistic in
the world. Lewis, however, argues that "there is an
important difference" between Judaism and the two newer
religions.
"The Jewish position was that there is only one God.
This was seen with horror by the polytheistic world of the
time. But the Christians and then the Muslims went one step
further: they said that not only is there only one God but
there is only one way to that God - our way. Now that was not
the Jewish position, which was expressed in the Talmudic
dictum that the righteous of all peoples have a place in
paradise. That is not the Christian or the Islamic view,
traditionally. Their view is that there is only one true
religion and the others are either false or at best
incomplete."
REGARDLESS of its sources, the most urgent question in
Israeli and American minds is how the "rage" of the
Muslim world can be tamed. Since September 11, America has
declared a war against terrorism that has so far seen the
demise of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and seems to
have Iraq's President Saddam Hussein in its sights. In the
Iraqi case, however, while no one doubts Saddam's despotism,
America's European and Arab allies seem hesitant to rid
themselves of "the devil they know." Lewis, by
contrast, is "very optimistic" about a post-Saddam
Iraq.
"I think Iraq is in many ways the most advanced, most
developed of the Arab countries. The Iraqi government of the
time probably did a better job than any other of putting its
oil revenues to constructive use. They built an
infrastructure, they built a good educational system. I have
personal dealings with Iraqi universities through their
graduate students who came to study with me, and they were in
general much better prepared, much better trained, than those
of other universities in the region.
"Although all this has suffered terrible damage at the
hands of Saddam Hussein, it has not been entirely destroyed.
I see the possibility of a genuinely enlightened and
progressive and - yes, I will say the word - democratic
regime arising in a post-Saddam Iraq. They will have been
fully inoculated against the Fascist-style governments that
otherwise seem to prevail."
Nor is Lewis concerned regarding the great bug-a-boo that
evidently prevented the United States from seeing to Saddam's
ouster the first time around: the prospect of Iraq breaking
up.
"That possibility has been put forward and that was why
ten years ago when Saddam was defeated, the choice apparently
was not for a change of regime - but a change of tyrant. The
idea was to replace a hostile tyrant by a friendly tyrant,
the kind of policy that worked so well in Central America.
"I think that calculation was mistaken. I don't think
that there was a danger of Iraq breaking up. For one reason,
any government of Iraq will dispose of substantial resources
- you don't get a problem of separatism under such
circumstances. For another, the Iraqi National Congress
(INC), which is the organized opposition movement, does
contain representatives of all groups in Iraq - Arabs and
Kurds, Sunni and Shia. If they form a successor government in
Iraq, I don't doubt that they could hold the country
together."
To Lewis, the apparent explanation for why the US has found
it easier to adopt the Northern Alliance - whose only
advantage seemed to be that they were not the Taliban - than
the Iraqi National Congress with its impressive democratic
credentials, is a damning one.
"One would have thought that [adopting the Iraqi
opposition] would be easier. The free zone in Iraq - the area
that is not subject to control of Saddam Hussein - comprises
one quarter of the land area of Iraq - a much more
substantial basis than the Northern Alliance ever had in
Afghanistan. There are other issues raised. There is the
living memory of the decision that was made ten years ago to
end the war, suddenly, leaving Saddam Hussein in power. As
you may recall, President [George W.] Bush at the time called
on the Iraqi people to revolt against their tyrant.
"They did revolt, and the coalition forces sat and
watched as Saddam suppressed them region by region and group
by group. That left a certain legacy of bitterness that one
can understand. It also left people very anxious to justify
what they did at the time. There are still people trying
desperately to prove that it was the right decision at the
time and by now I would have thought that it was perfectly
manifest that it was a wrong decision."
Lewis finds in the fall of the totalitarian Afghan regime an
important harbinger of things to come. To aid in
understanding this future, Lewis makes an observation that is
brilliant - precisely because it seems so obvious in
retrospect. The countries of the Middle East can be divided
into three types: those with an anti-American and
pro-American people, those with governments considered
pro-American in which anti-American hostility runs rampant,
and those in which both government and people are
pro-American.
The classic members of the first group are Iran and Iraq,
"where the governments take up passionately
anti-American positions and the people, therefore, look to
America as their future liberators, hoping that America will
do for them what it did for the people of Afghanistan. You
remember the scenes of rejoicing in Afghanistan. I'm told by
Iranian friends that those Afghan scenes of rejoicing would
look like a funeral compared with what would happen in Iran
if the present regime were overthrown."
Regarding the second group, whose most prominent members are
Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Lewis notes wryly, "It is no
accident, as they used to say in Moscow, that most of the
[September 11] terrorists and hijackers come from those two
countries. They live in very bad conditions; they at the very
least mistrust, and often hate, their governments whom they
see as responsible for their misery, and since those
governments are seen as pro-American they see America as
responsible for those governments. Hence, pro-American
governments, or allegedly pro-American governments, and
anti-American populations."
The third group, in which both the government and citizenry
are pro-American, currently has only two members: Turkey and
Israel. But even though it is clear to Lewis that democracy
is what makes these two countries peaceful, prosperous, and
pro-American, he is a very cautious evangelist when it comes
to democratizing the Middle East.
"Democracy is dangerous anywhere. Democracy is a very
strong medicine which has to be administered in small,
gradually increasing doses: Otherwise you risk killing the
patient. We talk sometimes as if democracy were the natural
human condition, as if any deviation from it is a crime to be
punished or a disease to be cured. That is not true.
Democracy, or what we call democracy nowadays, is the
parochial custom of the English-speaking peoples for the
conduct of their public affairs, which may or may not be
suitable for others.
"I think the Turks," Lewis continued, "got it
right in having gradual increases in democratic freedom.
Turkey meets the definition of democracy in that it changes
its government from time to time by elections. It also from
time to time changes its government by other methods, but
these are interruptions of the process, not terminations of
the process. I think one must have a realistic approach
without illusions and see democracy in terms of a gradual
maturing, and that is possible, its been done in many places.
"I agree [elections in the Arab world] could easily lead
to what happened in Germany. Hitler came to power by a free
and democratic vote. Mussolini didn't, but Hitler did."
DESPITE this cautionary note, Lewis does not see either of
the two Middle Eastern regimes Bush fingered in his
"axis of evil" as permanent features of the
international scene. The fall of either the Iraqi or Iranian
regime, Lewis argues, would hasten the fall of the other.
Further, Lewis rates as "possible" that a
post-Saddam Iraq would make peace with Israel, and
"probable" that a post-theocracy Iran would do so.
"In that case," Lewis speculates, "you could
expect a more lively response from the two countries that
already have peace treaties and diplomatic relations, Jordan
and Egypt."
How would all this affect our more immediate opponents, the
Palestinians?
The loss of one or both of their largest radical allies would
obviously weaken extremist Palestinian forces. But Lewis goes
beyond this to a prospect that could not seem more remote at
the moment: Palestinian democracy.
"The Palestinians have two, I hesitate to use the word
'advantages,' but it will do. One is the awful experience of
being ruled by a corrupt tyranny. The other is the example of
a lively vibrant democracy next door. I remember being told a
couple of years ago by some Jordanian professors that a
number of their students are learning Hebrew. This really
surprised me. I said, 'why would your students in Jordan want
to learn Hebrew?' They told me that they are fascinated by
Israeli television. They see these great and famous figures
screaming at each other and banging the table - something
like that is totally unknown in their world - and they want
to know what they are saying."
Lewis seems to be a proponent of what was derided as the
"domino theory" when applied to southeast Asia
during the Vietnam conflict. Despite the ridicule heaped upon
it then, the idea that both positive and negative
developments can prove contagious throughout a region has
been strengthened by subsequent history. In southeast Asia,
the fall of South Vietnam did lead to totalitarian
dictatorships in neighboring Laos and Cambodia. The collapse
of the Soviet Union certainly triggered the wave of freedom
that swept Central Europe.
If anything deserves ridicule, then it is the view that
systematic change can be wrought without toppling the first
domino of Arab tyrannies - Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The likely
alternative to the West playing this game in earnest is not
the status quo, but dominoes toppling the other direction.
