NOT SO GREAT EXPECTATIONS
(from the Daily Star)
At least the talk has changed - and that is a start. But regional cooperation and coordination are simply nonexistent, and the Arab League - in any case always an indirect arm of Egyptian foreign policy - is not effective, nor even viable. On these latter points all informed observers, and the Arab people who are acquainted with the labyrinthine maneuverings of their politicians, hold fast to well-established assessments.
We will not hold our breath waiting for reforms to be implemented, and any expectations centering on the next summit, to be hosted by Algeria, must be circumspect. The Algiers summit, in fact, is likely to assume the aura of an emergency. Waiting for Algiers to deliver the goods, if the result of the Tunis summit is anything to go by, will be like waiting for Godot. Much will happen between now and then, and the Arab League, as in the past, is unlikely to keep abreast of new crises as they evolve, let alone deal with a long-standing backlog of pledges to initiate something resembling reform.
Okay, nothing much of substance achieved. But at least they've got a snazzy website!
Haaretz is a bit more optimistic:
The summit called upon each state to do its best, under the prevailing circumstances, to promote reform toward more democratic and liberal rule. Except for the expected rejection of external (i.e. American) interference in the promotion of internal reform in Arab countries, the wording confirms the cultural, social and political differences that separate Arab countries.
The resolution passed states that comprehensive reform will be implemented only when all of the region's conflicts are resolved, in other words, sometime around eternity. Even Egypt's attempt to create a unified framework within the Arab League, through which to conduct dialog with the United States on the subject of reform failed utterly.
In operative terms, the resolutions passed are striking for their condemnation of harm done to civilians on all sides, including Israelis, but Arab leaders were careful to distinguish between legitimate uprising and terrorism.
It's worth noting that such condemnation is not necessarily the product of leaderly endeavor but mainly born of public debate among Arabs in the past two years, in which harsh criticism was directed at suicide attacks and terror attacks in Arab countries, particularly Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
This may be the summit's most significant development: it revealed a great attentiveness to public discourse and a willingness, even if imperfect, to respond to it.
(italics added)
One of the main things holding back reform in the Arab world, aside from the obvious reluctance of authoritarian rulers to relinquish power, is the fear that, rather than resulting in political moderation, political reform and greater openness will lead to the domination of politics by radical Islamists. It's a bit of a Catch-22: by having prohibited traditional political organizations over the past half century and denying their populations any sort of voice in the way they are governed, Arab rulers have effectively made the very practice of politics itself revolutionary, thus strengthening radical voices and weakening moderate ones. This fact is then used as an argument, and not an unreasonable one, against reforms that are anything more than cosmetic.
It's obvious that the West cannot impose democracy by force. I think it can, to some extent, use selective force to create conditions for the growth of democracy, and the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime was an important achievement in this respect, though the benefits of removing the destabilizing factor that was Saddam are slowly being lost in the fog of the botched occupation. To state the blindingly obvious, the real initiative and the real changes in the Arab world will have to come from the various Arab states themselves, one at a time, little by little. Even if frustratingly weak on substance, this most recent summit still represents some movement in response to public (that is, democratic) pressure.
And that, as St. Martha says, is a good thing.
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