NEW YORK, 3 February — “What should we do about the Arabs?” This is the question that American officials and policy advisers are asking in private during the current World Economic Forum here. The question is also raised, albeit in a more diplomatic form, in several panels as one of the key themes of this year’s exercise.
“The Arab countries form the last part of the world that is still trying to stay out of the modern times,” says Francis Fukuyama, author of “The End of History.” “The question how they can be changed will be an important theme of international politics in the coming years.”
Arab countries’ resistance to change is not limited to their general refusal to adopt the West’s political system. It is also reflected in the fact that most Arab countries are sticking to an economic system dominated by the state. “We want all Arab countries to join,” says Michael Moore who heads the World Trade Organization. “But to do that they have to introduce economic reforms that could be painful for powerful groups including some elements in the ruling elites.”
Some Arab states are also kept out of the WTO because of religious considerations. They cannot accept the lifting of all trade barriers if that means legalizing imports of illicit goods such as alcoholic drinks that are banned by Islam.
The current crisis goes deeper than differences over political systems and the terms of trade.
The United States has suddenly realized that it cannot automatically count on its traditional Arab allies. None of those allies has openly defied the US during the current anti-terrorism war in Afghanistan. In fact, acting without publicity, all those allies have given the US all the help it wanted. Nevertheless, the perception is that the good old days when the US and its traditional allies, especially Egypt and Saudi Arabia, were on the same wavelength on all issues may be drawing to a close.
“All alliances are subject to development and change,” says Richard Haas, one of the rising stars of the Bush administration and a key policy-maker at the State Department. “This is why we all have to keep working together to resolve differences and find new points of concord.”
One thing is certain: the US needs some “sure friends” in the so-called “arc of instability” that spans from Morocco to the Indian subcontinent.
A number of candidates for the position of “sure friends” are already in the field. Some, like King Abdallah of Jordan, are, in fact, old friends trying to further strengthen their bonds with the West in general and the US in particular. Featured as a star speaker in this year’s forum, the Jordanian leader is telling the Americans that many Arabs are on their side in what President George W. Bush has described as “the war between good and evil.”
To underline that position, Jordan has despatched a contingent of its troops to Afghanistan to help bolster the new regime in Kabul.
Also seeking the position of “special friend” are Bahrain and Qatar. The Bahraini leadership has adopted a strong and unambiguous position regarding the war against terrorism and made it clear that the US has a free hand to use the base facilities it enjoys in the archipelago.
Qatar has adopted a similar position. It has also used its position as the rotating chairman of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to make sure that the Muslim world remains generally sympathetic to the American-led campaign in Afghanistan.
The leaders of Jordan, Bahrain and Qatar have been frequent guests on American television and spoken strongly in support of the US cause against terrorism. By doing so they have also helped counter claims by pro-Israel groups that all Arabs are by definition hostile to the US. The fact that all three have adopted moderate policies toward Israel also helps their image in the US. The US media are building up Jordan, Bahrain and Qatar as model Arab states for yet another reason. All three claim to be constitutional monarchies committed to holding free elections in which women can both vote and get elected. Kuwait, a country liberated partly thanks to US intervention in 1991, has also been knocked out of the inner circle of Washington’s Arab friends. A hasty visit to Washington by Vice Premier Shaikh Sabah Ahmad Al-Jaber, late last year does not seem to have pacified the Americans.
Bush administration officials were dismayed by Kuwait’s “disdainful attitude” after Sept. 11 and angry at anti-American statements made by one or two fundamentalist members in the Kuwaiti parliament. Kuwait is trying to repair its image in the US by launching a charm offensive that includes a big luncheon in New York to coincide with this year’s forum.
One might have expected Morocco to be included in that list. But Washington insiders describe Morocco’s response to the war against terrorism as “hesitant”. Rabat has offered the US only “mild and ambiguous” support since the Sept. 11 tragedies. It has also remained “cool” to suggestions that Moroccan troops be made available for the peacekeeping force in Afghanistan.
With all the bigger Arab states now regarded with varying degrees of suspicion in Washington, some American policy-makers are trying to promote Algeria as the United Sates’ new “special friend” in the Arab world. “There is no doubt that many eyes are now fixed on Algeria,” says a senior policy adviser to the US administration. “It is no accident that Algerian President Abdulaziz Bouteflika is the only Arab leader to have had two summit meetings with President Bush so far.”
Bouteflika, who is given star billing by the US administration seems anxious to seize the opportunity for promoting his country as a key partner for the West, especially the United States in a major effort to build a bridge between the Muslim world and the Western powers.
The Algerian discourse is simple: Algeria has already experienced fundamentalist terror and is thus vaccinated against it. Most other Arab states, however, are still terrified of fundamentalism and are trying to appease it by making anti-American gestures. Also, Algeria is on the path of democratization and, despite setbacks and U-turns, is unlikely to revert to the dictatorial systems in place in so many other Arab countries.
The Algerian-American relationship has been quietly expanding since the late 1990s. The number of Algerian military trained in the US has quadrupled since 1995 with American firms also beginning to supply so-called “non-lethal” weapons systems to Algeria. More importantly, Algeria has put its cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on a new footing with its navy taking part in military exercises organized by the US Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean.
There is yet another sign that the Bush administration regards Algeria as a potentially vital element in a future American policy toward the Arab world. Bouteflika is the only Arab leader to be invited to attend the next G-8 summit, to be held in Canada in June
Some analysts, however, insist that the US cannot build a new Arab policy based solely on Algeria and the three smaller states of Jordan, Bahrain and Qatar. They urge the administration to take initiatives to “clear out the air” with both Saudi Arabia and Egypt while reassuring Morocco that the emergence of Algeria as a key partner for the US need not undermine older ties with Rabat.
