articles about GMEI

A Roadmap for Reform Or a Coverup for Domination?  1

Arabs Split Over GME 2

Bush’s GME Initiative 3

Colonial Echoes, Galal Amin 4

Europe and the GME, Richard Youngs 5

Getting the GME Riht, Zeyno Baran 6

GME (entire report) 7

GME (Whitehouse Factsheet) 8

GME Initiative 9

GME Initiative, Ahmad Faruqi 10

GME Initiative, Richard Murphy 11

GME Initiative, Nasim Zehra 12

GME Initiative: A Way to Dominate the Arab World 13

GME Initiative: An Evaluaton, Tamara Wittes 14

GME Initiative: Off to a False Start, Carnegie Endowment Policy Brief 15

GME Initiative Stumbles Amid Charges It Imposes Change 16

GME Initiative: In Pursuit of Arab Reform 17

GME Should Not Become Another High Flying Slogan, Richard Murphy 18

GME: The U.S. Plan, Gilbert Achcar 19

GME: Vision or Mirage, Paul Rogers 20

Golpara Calls for a Greater Western World Initiative 21

Imperial Illusions of Change, Kareem Kamel 22

Jumpstarting Arab Reform: the GME, Gary Gamble 23

Middle East Needs Its Democracy Home Grown, Jonathan Steele 24

Middle East Initiative Unveiled 25

Motives Behind GME Challenged 26

NATO Mulls Role in GME 27

Partnership of Patrimony 28

RAND Initiative for Middle Eastern Youth (IMEY) is a combined research and outreach effort geared towards the greater Middle East’s next generation.  29

Saudi Arabia and Egypt Rebuff GME 30

Should Middle East Initiative Not Come From Within? 31

Turkey Enthusiastic about GME 32

U.S. Launches Initiative to Promote Democracy in the Middle East 33

U.S. Plans Mideast Pact 34

Winds of War: Democratizing the Middle East, Lindley Young 35

updated 4-22-2005

The GMEI is once again being discussed widely.

Promoting Democracy and Fighting Terror 36

Iran Says American Intervention Is Behind Insecurity in Middle East 37

From Syria With Love 38

Votes That Rebound, Hassan Naafa 39

Tempering Mideast Expectations, Robert Charles 40

From the Sahara to Germany: What Does Progress Mean, Robert Weiner 41

Iran’s Khamenei Calls For Resistance to U.S. Plan for Middle East 42

Perhaps a Charm Offensive, Mensur Akgun 43

Quest for Democracy in the Middle East, Muhammad al Ashab 44

NATO ICI Initiative 45

Arab National Congress Meeting 46

Remembering the South, Adam Morrow 47

U.S. Prepares to Promote Democracy in Iran, Rupert Cornwell 48

American Subterfuge: the Second Phase of the Neo-Cons Global Strategy is Upon Us, Hasan Nafaa 49

Are Bush’s Calls for Middle East Democracy Bolstering Islamists?, Jalal Ghazi 50

Intellectuals Should Acknowledge the Ills of Their Own Nations, Daoud Kuttab 51

Was Algiers a Dictators Graveyard? 52

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key quotes from artices

The ?Greater Middle East? is defined by the Bush initiative as the Arab world and some of its neighbors, including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, and Israel. It calls for major political and economic reforms in those nations and offers incentives, such as increased aid and facilitated membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO), for countries that comply.  1

Conservative Iranian columnist Hamid Golpira has proposed the drafting of a Greater Western World Initiative to invite Westerners to Islam and encourage them to be more tolerant and less racist. “There is a spiritual void in the West. Seeking to fill this void, millions of people have converted to Islam in the United States and other Western countries. The Greater Western World Initiative should utilize this fertile ground to promote Islam in the West,” he stated.  21

Ignoring these historical differences, the Bush plan’s principal defect is its neglect of the Palestinian problem. The great issue of the day is the Arab-Israel conflict. In specific terms, it revolves round the continued occupation of Palestinian territories by Israel. 3

There are many who suspect the GME initiative diverts attention from the administration?s real agenda, which they contend is focused on gaining unfettered access to the region?s oil and gas resources.  10

Reform in the Middle East is inevitable and every effort should be made to promote it. Unfortunately, the Bush administration?s ?Greater Middle East (GME) initiative? is an example of how not to promote reform. The initiative is loosely based on the 1975 Helsinki accords, which were signed by 35 nations, including the US, the former Soviet Union and most European states. Washington?s working definition of the GME region includes the 22 nations of the Arab world, plus Turkey in Europe, Israel in the Middle East, and Pakistan and Afghanistan in South Asia.  10

Despite common interests and a half century of interaction between Arab and American officials, our people remain largely ignorant of each other. Arabs dwell on the alleged total Israeli control of American Middle East policy while American understanding of the region is equally twisted: the Middle East is a hostile area dominated by Islamic extremists. This mutual misunderstanding complicated our relationships when we were a distant Great Power. It is more unsettling and dangerous to both sides now that we have occupied Iraq and talk openly of our commitment to preemptive war.  At this juncture the Arab and Muslim world is undergoing a sharp crisis of confidence. It increasingly feels that its values and its identity are under attack, while its youth are therefore increasingly receptive to the call to defend Islam against the Western onslaught.  11

The Arab countries and Pakistan have also rejected the initiative.

They have cited any number of reasons: Their Islamic identity, opposition to foreign intervention, Arab ways, their unique environment, and the Palestinian dispute. Many of these reasons won?t wash. Islam, cultural identity and the unresolved Palestinian question are no deterrents to the establishment of democracy and the rule of law in the region. The real problem lies in US unilateralism. There are two problems linked to this approach. First, it is seen as undermining the sovereignty of states already feeling the heat of an interventionist US which remains highly unpredictable in its ?treatment? of the region after the invasion of Iraq. Secondly, given the US?s track record on subverting democracy and democratic forces in the region, its motives as a promoter of democracy must remain suspect.  12

“They want us to abandon our heritage, culture and religious believes while implementing democracy, that’s why a U.S.-imposed democracy must be rejected,” ...
“Any initiative that comes from the current U.S. administration which plan to strike Iraq and wants to control the whole region, should be carefully studied and its sinister intentions should be taken into consideration,” 13

Recognizing that external pressure for internal political change is always a difficult proposition, the more so in this case given America’s negative image in the Muslim world, the Bush Administration has sought the support of European and other western countries for its project of region-wide democracy promotion. But the American initiative ran into stiff opposition from the outset. European governments are keen to protect their own reform initiatives, such as the European-Mediterranean dialogue begun in Barcelona in 1995 (which is focused on the Mediterranean littoral states rather than the “Greater Middle East,” which stretches from Morocco to Pakistan). They are also skeptical that democracy can take root in the Middle East without significant changes in culture and society, so they prefer to speak of “modernization” rather than “democratization.” Finally, European governments view the resentments and tensions in the Muslim world as rooted as much in the continued crises in Iraq and between Israelis and Palestinians as in Arabs’ lack of freedom. They therefore emphasize the urgency and necessity of attention to the Middle East peace process parallel to pressure on Arab states for internal reforms.  14

The governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt—three of America’s closest regional partners—termed the plan a unilateral effort to impose change on their region from the outside. 16

Other Arab leaders, such as Syria’s Bashar al-Asad, also criticised the plan because of the political affiliation of its champions: prominent neoconservative figures in Washington, the same neocons who promoted the war on Iraq.  Egypt’s Mubarak sees a different role for the US in the Middle East… Some of these figures - the subject of much controversy - are believed to be instrumental in forging present US foreign policy in the Middle East: Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Under-Secretary of Defence Douglas Feith, Richard Perle (Defence Policy Board), David Wurmser (Vice-President Dick Cheney’s adviser) and Danielle Pletka, (a vice-president of AEI) are some of the more visible.  Responding to the initiative, Jordan’s foreign minister, Marwan Muasher, wished that the American initiative would “never see the light of day”. 17

the Bush administration is facing two conflicting imperatives. The first is the need to fight Islamic fundamentalism worldwide, which has entailed that the US set aside its democratic rhetoric and seek closer cooperation with authoritarian regimes throughout the Middle East and Asia. The second is the realization on the part of many US decision-makers that it is precisely the lack of democracy in Muslim countries and the US ? alliances with oppressive autocracies that fuel the cause of the Islamists.  36

While the US preached democracy and freedom, it not only advocated an aggressive doctrine of pre-emptive warfare, but also worked to cultivate closer ties with tyrants in the Middle East and Central Asia. The most glaring case of US security interests superseding its calls for democracy lies in Pakistan, where President Pervez Musharraf seized power in a 1999 military coup, tightened his authoritarian grip on power, and instituted a series of antidemocratic constitutional amendments. In recognition of the Pakistani leader?s critical supporting role in the ?war on terrorism,? the Bush administration showered Musharraf with praise and attention, waived various economic sanctions that had been imposed on Pakistan, assembled a handsome aid package that exceeded $600 million in 2002, and restarted US-Pakistani military cooperation.  36

In Central Asia, the US ? need for military bases and other forms of security arrangements led the US to forge closer relations with the despotic leaders of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.  Even Saparmurat Niyazov, the totalitarian megalomaniac running Turkmenistan, received a friendly visit from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in April 2002. In view of Kazakhstan ?s significant oil and gas reserves, and President Nursultan Nazarbayev?s close cooperation with the US on security and economic matters, there was no US pressure of any sort on Kazakhstan ?s president to launch democratic reforms.  36

Once again, as the Arabs are defeated and demoralized, a new ?initiative? is being crafted by outside powers with an agenda for change that is completely different from that of mainstream Arab civil society. After the Tenet Plan, the Mitchell Report, the ?roadmap,? and Bush?s recent ?forward strategy for freedom,? a new place in the dustbin of history is reserved for the Greater Middle East Initiative. 22

Fawaz Trabulsi, political science distinguished visiting professor from the Lebanese American University.  Speaking on campus, Trabulsi, a political activist during the Lebanese civil war, delivered a lecture titled “The Greater Middle East: What’s in a Name?” Trabulsi contented that the claims of wanting to democratize the region are part of a larger plan to reshape the region.  The alleged “democratic efforts,” Trabulsi asserted, are a paradox since the US, France and Britain not only supported, but created and put in power despotic, autocratic governments, while suppressing democratic movements in the region.  “Names could become a political power. Throughout history, the region has been named through the geostrategic interests of the dominant powers,” he said. “During World War II, the British called us the Near East as they thought of us as a strategic unit that has its capital in Cairo.” The latest name, the Greater Middle East, is also a strategic construct, he explained. It aims to incorporate Afghanistan, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and especially Israel as part of this region.  According to Trabulsi, names are used without giving them much thought, which is the “epitome of humiliation” that a region cannot choose its own name. In addition to the Near East, Trabulsi argued that the “Middle East” and the “Mediterranean and North Africa region” were all names imposed by colonial or dominant powers.  26

According to a November 3, 2003 Secretary of State press release: To support this advance of freedom, U.S. policy rests upon eight “non-negotiable demands of human dignity”: rule of law, limits on the power of the state, free speech, freedom of worship, equal justice, respect for women, religious and ethnic tolerance, and respect for private property, according to Powell.  “Dictators and despots can build walls high enough to keep out armies, but not high enough to keep those winds from blowing in,” Powell said to students and faculty of City College of New York. 35

In her interview with The Washington Post last week, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was upbeat about democratic transformation in the Middle East. She had no qualms about regime change and harangued those ready to accommodate the status quo for the sake of stability. When told that the region is so volatile that, should democracy fail, it may slip into chaos or be taken over by Islamist groups, Condi flashed her trademark smile and explained the chaos initially produced by democratisation is ?creative chaos? that would make things better in the end.  This is not the first time US academics and policy makers come up with fancy terms. Coining political terms is becoming an art form in America, a matter of extraordinary expertise. Terms do not spring to life spontaneously. They are honed with precision, spun with care, delivered with a dose of subterfuge. Instability, ambiguity and chaos are things commonly thought of as negative, but when instability becomes ?controlled?, ambiguity ?constructive?, and chaos ?creative?, they become suddenly more palatable. Spinning is a craft, and when the spin doctors are good, listeners won?t even notice their input.  49

Reform is not a new issue in the Arab world. It has been the demand of Arab democrats and human rights activists for years. Most of those fighters for democracy have been muzzled, detained, tortured, or have disappeared or been killed by Arab dictators and even leaders who are believed to be moderate in the eyes of the Western world.
Visit any major European capital today and you will find a crowd of Arab thinkers, intellectuals, journalists, human rights activists, and scientists who have chosen exile rather than continue to live under the tyranny of their regimes. Many independent Arab media outlets have thrived in capitals like Paris and London, and many regional Arab NGOs make their official bases outside the region.
With such a strong Arab democratic movement, an objective observer would expect a strong embrace from Arab intellectuals and human rights activists to the recent calls by the United States government to place serious pressure on Arab regimes to reform their governments. But an eerie silence has fallen on political opponents, both inside the Arab world and in exile. In fact, an unusually overwhelming comprehensive attack has been expressed against the new U.S. reform plan. These attacks, which have appeared in the opinion pages of major Arab newspapers and in satellite talk shows, have focused almost exclusively on three areas. The attacks have questioned the credibility of Washington and expressed major misgivings in the real goals of the U.S. government in general, and the Bush administration in particular. 51

But something has indeed changed. The power that formerly “stabilized” the Middle East is now the owner and author of a project that seeks to transform the Greater Middle East. And the passage from the former to the latter seems to require no less than a miracle: namely taming and applying to the region “creative destabilization” or “creative chaos,” to use expressions imported to Middle Eastern politics by Washington neoconservatives. The older meaning of “stability” was Israeli supremacy and support for supposedly moderate Arab regimes. But then moderation is a standard word for accepting whatever the U.S. decides - Washington being moderation incarnated.
Democracy, the U.S. argues, is the desired outcome of this creative chaos of which occupied Iraq is an illustrious example. It is left to the Arabs to watch how democracy will spring forth from such chaos, as the Greek goddess Athena sprang forth from the head of Zeus.
But the improbability of that miracle is the only good news for the Arab regimes. The bad news is that change has become an American imperative. We may have to wait for democracy, but chaos is guaranteed by the most powerful country on this planet. So, while the patriarchs in Algiers might have felt easy about the limited prospects for democracy, this does not mean that all is business as usual, since Washington has greater ambitions of order in the Middle East. How ironic that it was the Iraqi gods in antiquity that imposed order on chaos.
The Greater Middle East project is the U.S. “road map” for the “war against terror.” It is the focal point of American strategy in the region, stretching from Casablanca to Jakarta. The builders of this new empire know well that they cannot build their spacious new palace using old building stones, the remnants of the now-obsolete cold war order that they once propped up in the region.  52

SEE ALSO:

CURRENT EVENTS: Persecution of Muslims Under Cover of Fighting Terrorism

RELIGION BUILDING: Daniel Pipes the New Voice of Moderate Islam

America’s Image: How Others See Us

Islam’s Image: How Others See Us