A not-so-recent piece in Foreign Affairs is recently featured discussing a timely topic: Hamas and its prospects for peaceful political activity. It argued in March 2006 that Hamas would not moderate its military aims in the near future just because of political integration, a prescient argument in light of recent events. The article--which, incidentally, is written by the son of a former president of Israel--identifies three conditions required for the successful integration of a radical movement into mainstream politics: a healthy political system, a way to leverage power against extremists, and enough time for moderation to occur.
By drawing on examples of state/Islamist cooperation--and the occasional lack thereof--in Turkey, Jordan, and Egypt, Herzog observes insightfully that Islamic groups in stable Arab states generally have either legal political power or illegal military power, but never both. Unlike the case of Mahmoud Abbas's government, peaceful states like Jordan or Egypt draw a strict line between encouraging Islamist participation as political movements, or banning them outright as illegal terrorists. To allow Hamas's political participation without demanding disarmament was the Palestinian Authority's first mistake, according to Herzog. As he mentions,
Islamists in Jordan were recognized publicly and given a stake in the political life there from the country's founding, in 1946, and as a result they have led the most establishment-oriented and least violent Islamist movement in the region.
On the other hand,
The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt...which favored violence to the point of assassinating a prime minister in 1948, was outlawed in 1954. Decades of repression and political exclusion eventually split the movement into two branches.
In a way, however, Herzog's argument is a bit of a political tautology. <!--more-->Obviously, good politics, weak bad guys, and a lot of time are going to be favorable circumstances for just about anything. The PA didn't fail to disarm Hamas because it didn't want to, but because it was powerless. Besides the fact that Hamas and Hezbollah have a stranglehold on political legitimacy, as well as enjoy considerable grassroots support in their respective areas, their capabilities for violence also rule out any sort of wait-and-see approach over the long term. Herzog's analysis is correct in identifying the historic underpinnings of these extremist movements. However, the question today is whether the three criteria themselves can be the target of decisive change through strong leadership or by intervention, and the record here is anything but consistent.
Recent efforts to achieve the criteria of a free and healthy political system are reflected in the U.S.-backed efforts at democratic reform in Iraq, Lebanon, and in the PA. Indeed, the Bush administration's offical rhetoric emphasizes democratization as the first line of defense against radical Islam and, most importantly, international terrorism. This line of logic has unfortunately proved to be a vast oversimplification. <!--more-->Consider Herzog's own examples: Jordan and Egypt seem to have achieved prosperity and relative stability, despite the autocratic nature of their governments. Authoritarian tactics may even help in enforcing state restrictions on Islamic extremists, provided, of course, that those restrictions are there in the first place. By the same token, the last thing a country entrenched in violent extremism needs is to give those elements political legitimacy on top of their popular support. Many consider this a sign that the current U.S. policy of democratization is fundamentally misguided. As Foreign Policy (via Google) points out:
Like it or not, the most successful efforts to control radical Islamist political groups have been antidemocratic, repressive campaigns, such as those waged in Tunisia, Egypt, and Algeria in the 1990s. The notion that Arab governments would necessarily be more effective in fighting extremists is wishful thinking, no matter how valuable democratization might be for other reasons. (link to article)
More likely though, the official rhetoric is simply deceptive. The attempt at democracy in Iraq notwithstanding, the U.S. continues to deal with authoritarian Arab regimes as it always has: with a large dose of pragmatism. Repressive behavior in Arab states is not uniformly condemned, but rather highlighted to discredit only those countries (such as Iran and Syria) that publicly defy U.S. interests in the region.
Perhaps the best thing for curbing extremism isn't democratization at all, at least not in any immediate form. As Hamas and Iraq demonstrate, a naive overreliance on political reform actually weakens governments. The international community may do best to back a regime not on the basis on ideological alignment with the West, but rather on its ability to assert authoritative control over militants and to meet the needs of its populace on the ground.
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