Bush’s Speech in Abu Dhabi

RISHON LEZION, Israel — While vis­it­ing the United Arab Emi­rates on an eight-day visit to the Mid­dle East, Pres­i­dent Bush out­lined a vision for the Arab world that pro­moted peace, free­dom and democ­racy in the embat­tled region while call­ing for a united front against ter­ror­ists and the states that spon­sor them.

The text of the speech is here. What fol­lows is my analysis.

“I am hon­ored by the oppor­tu­nity to stand on Arab soil and speak to the peo­ple of this nation and this region.”

Osama bin Laden hates the United States and the gov­ern­ment of Saudi Ara­bia partly because of the fact that U.S. mil­i­tary bases have been allowed in the coun­try since the first Gulf War. To bin Laden, the pres­ence of the West on the land where Islam was founded is an affront to Mus­lims because it recalls the humil­i­at­ing col­o­niza­tion of the Mid­dle East by Euro­pean coun­tries fol­low­ing World War I.

For Islamic extrem­ists, what hap­pened eighty years ago is just as rel­e­vant as what hap­pened yes­ter­day. It was a pow­er­ful state­ment for Pres­i­dent Bush to give a major pol­icy address from the Arab world. Still, I worry that Pres­i­dent Bush’s phys­i­cal pres­ence in an Arab coun­try may enrage al-Qaeda because of its sym­bolic mean­ing. The West, of course, can never live in fear, but it does need to take these fac­tors into account.

Still, Pres­i­dent Bush did cover his bases well by specif­i­cally stat­ing that he was on “Arab land” and that “the United States has no desire for ter­ri­tory. We seek our shared secu­rity in your lib­erty.” Many Amer­i­can lis­ten­ers prob­a­bly won­dered why Pres­i­dent Bush made these exact state­ments, but they were full of inten­tional, his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance. Pres­i­dent Bush needed to ensure that his Arab audi­ence would not think that the United States is another France and Great Britain.

“Through­out the sweep of his­tory, the lands that the Arab peo­ple call home have played a piv­otal role in world affairs. These lands sit at the junc­ture of three great con­ti­nents — Europe and Asia and Africa. These lands have given birth to three of the world’s major reli­gions. These lands have seen the rise and fall of great civ­i­liza­tions. And in the 21st cen­tury, these lands are once again play­ing a cen­tral role in the human story. ”

Pres­i­dent Bush is cor­rect. For any­one who thinks that Arabs and Mus­lims have never con­tributed to civ­i­liza­tion, con­sider the fol­low­ing: While Europe was fight­ing through the Dark Ages, the Arab Empire was pre­serv­ing and trans­lat­ing the philo­soph­i­cal and math­e­mat­i­cal texts of ancient Greece and Rome after invad­ing bar­bar­ians destroyed many of them. If you enjoy a cup of cof­fee in the morn­ing, thank the Arabs for invent­ing it. If you use sym­bols like 1, 2 and 3 for num­bers, thank the Arabs for com­ing up with them. (If you hated alge­bra in school, I sup­pose you can blame the Arabs for cre­at­ing that sys­tem as well.)

The Mid­dle East will indeed become more promi­nent in the near future sim­ply because fun­da­men­tal­ism has been increas­ing in the three reli­gions — Judaism, Chris­tian­ity and Islam — that were born in the region. What occurs in the Mid­dle East affects more than two bil­lion peo­ple through­out the world. For this rea­son alone, the world needs to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“A great new era is unfold­ing before us. This new era is founded on the equal­ity of all peo­ple before God. This new era is being built with the under­stand­ing that power is a trust that must be exer­cised with the con­sent of the gov­erned — and deliver equal jus­tice under the law. And this new era offers hope for the mil­lions across the Mid­dle East who yearn for a future of peace and progress and opportunity.”

This is where Pres­i­dent Bush starts to force alien ideas onto a for­eign culture.

Mus­lims would gen­er­ally agree with the first part of this state­ment — that all peo­ple are equal before God – but for dif­fer­ent rea­sons. Pres­i­dent Bush equates equal­ity with freedom: He believes that all peo­ple have the right to be from polit­i­cal, reli­gious, and social oppres­sion. Islam equates equal­ity with sub­mis­sion: Mus­lims believe that all peo­ple are equal in the fact that they should sub­mit to the will of God.

More­over, in Western-style democ­ra­cies, gov­ern­ments obtain their legit­i­macy from the con­sent of the gov­erned; all author­ity, in the end, flows from the peo­ple. Every­one is equal under the law because the law comes from the peo­ple. In the Islamic world, however, the only source of legit­i­macy and author­ity is God. Every­thing comes from God. The law comes from God. I’m not con­vinced that democ­racy is com­pat­i­ble with this mind­set. The West­ern world — more specif­i­cally, the Catholic Church — cre­ated the idea of the sep­a­ra­tion of church and state. This con­cept never existed in Islam.

(For more on this topic, I highly rec­om­mend “The West and the Rest: Glob­al­iza­tion and the Ter­ror­ist Threat” by Roger Scruton.)

“For decades, the peo­ple of this region saw their desire for lib­erty and jus­tice denied at home and dis­missed abroad in the name of sta­bil­ity. Today your aspi­ra­tions are threat­ened by vio­lent extrem­ists who mur­der the inno­cent in pur­suit of power. These extrem­ists have hijacked the noble reli­gion of Islam, and seek to impose their total­i­tar­ian ide­ol­ogy on mil­lions. They hate free­dom and they hate democ­racy — because it fos­ters reli­gious tol­er­ance and allows peo­ple to chart their own future. They hate your gov­ern­ment because it does not share their dark vision. They hate the United States because they know we stand with you in oppo­si­tion to their bru­tal ambi­tions. And every­where they go, they use mur­der and fear to foment insta­bil­ity to advance their aims.”

Pres­i­dent Bush is partly cor­rect. Coun­tries like Egypt and Saudi Ara­bia do barely tol­er­ate any sig­nif­i­cant dis­sent and oppo­si­tion. Egypt oppres­sion the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, a mildly Islamist party that forms the most sig­nif­i­cant oppo­si­tion party, in the name of “sta­bil­ity,” but that is only a guise for the gov­ern­ment to remain in power. Saudi Ara­bia made a deal with their dev­ils: The royal fam­ily allows extrem­ist Sunni Islam sects to oper­ate as they wish — and the gov­ern­ment even funds them — in exchange for an agree­ment that they do not chal­lenge the government.

The aspi­ra­tions of peo­ple in Arab coun­tries for “lib­erty” and “jus­tice” can some­times be ful­filled through Islamist par­ties. The Pales­tini­ans were given a choice, and rightly or wrongly, they gave Hamas a major­ity in the most recent par­lia­men­tary elec­tions. The Mus­lim Broth­er­hood would have a good chance of win­ning an elec­tion in Egypt if the party were given a fair shot.

How­ever, the impor­tant point to make here is that many Mus­lims do not like democ­racy sim­ply because they view it as a for­eign import — like fem­i­nism and blue jeans — that is nei­ther Arab nor Mus­lim. Decades of col­o­niza­tion, as I explained in a prior post, have led many Arabs and Mus­lims to view any­thing West­ern as sus­pi­cious. The answer is more com­pli­cated than what Pres­i­dent Bush stated.

“One cause of insta­bil­ity is the extrem­ists sup­ported and embod­ied by the regime that sits in Tehran. Iran is today the world’s lead­ing state spon­sor of ter­ror. It sends hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars to extrem­ists around the world — while its own peo­ple face repres­sion and eco­nomic hard­ship at home. It under­mines Lebanese hopes for peace by arm­ing and aid­ing the ter­ror­ist group Hezbol­lah. It sub­verts the hopes for peace in other parts of the region by fund­ing ter­ror­ist groups like Hamas and the Pales­tine Islamic Jihad. It sends arms to the Tal­iban in Afghanistan and Shia mil­i­tants in Iraq. It seeks to intim­i­date its neigh­bors with bal­lis­tic mis­siles and bel­li­cose rhetoric. And finally, it defies the United Nations and desta­bi­lizes the region by refus­ing to be open and trans­par­ent about its nuclear pro­grams and ambi­tions. Iran’s actions threaten the secu­rity of nations everywhere.”

Pres­i­dent Bush is correct.

“So the United States is strength­en­ing our long­stand­ing secu­rity com­mit­ments with our friends in the Gulf — and ral­ly­ing friends around the world to con­front this dan­ger before it is too late.”

I sin­cerely hope that Pres­i­dent Bush is using exag­ger­ated rhetoric to make his feel­ings known. Oth­er­wise, such words are dan­ger­ous — par­tic­u­larly when the U.S. gov­ern­ment itself deter­mined that Iran stopped its devel­op­ment of nuclear weapons in 2003.

If I were a reporter at the speech, I would ask what Pres­i­dent Bush meant by “confront.” Does he aim to have mod­er­ate, Sunni, Arab states form an anti-Iran alliance (pos­si­bly with Israel as well)? Does he want to destroy any nuclear-development facil­i­ties? Does he want to push harsher eco­nomic sanc­tions through the United Nations? The fact remains that Pres­i­dent Bush is a lame duck who will prob­a­bly be unable to rally the United States in favor of any mil­i­tary action against Iran after the deba­cle in Iraq.

“The other major cause of insta­bil­ity is the extrem­ists embod­ied by al Qaeda and its affil­i­ates. On Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001, al Qaeda mur­dered nearly 3,000 peo­ple on America’s home soil. Some of the vic­tims that day were inno­cent Mus­lims. And since then, al Qaeda and its allies have killed many more Mus­lims here in the Mid­dle East — includ­ing women and chil­dren. In Afghanistan under the Tal­iban, on Iraq’s Anbar Province, they ruled by intim­i­da­tion and mur­der. Their goal is to impose that same dark rule across the Mid­dle East. So they seek to top­ple your gov­ern­ments, acquire weapons of mass destruc­tion, and drive a wedge between the peo­ple of the United States and the peo­ple of the Mid­dle East.”

This point can­not be made enough. Too many peo­ple in the West view the cur­rent con­flict as a war between “Islam” and “the West.” This is hardly the case. The con­flict is between “Islamists” and “every­one else.” Islamists hate West­ern coun­tries because they col­o­nized the Mid­dle East and (in their inac­cu­rate opin­ion) founded Israel. Islamists hate sec­u­lar, Arab states like Iraq under Sad­dam Hus­sein and Egypt under Hosni Mubarak. Sunni Islamists like Al-Qaeda hate Shi’a Islamists like Hizbol­lah. Islamists hate Saudi Ara­bia because they allow the United States to have a mil­i­tary pres­ence. Islamists hate Mus­lims who wear blue jeans and lis­ten to rock music. Islamists hate Mus­lim men whose beards are not “long enough.”

Islamism may be the most nar­cis­sis­tic reli­gious phi­los­o­phy that has ever been cre­ated. They hate every­one who is not like them.

“The fight against the forces of extrem­ism is the great ide­o­log­i­cal strug­gle of our time.”

That sword cuts both ways, Pres­i­dent Bush.

“As free­dom and jus­tice advance in this part of the world, elec­tions are impor­tant, but they’re only a start. Free and just soci­eties require strong civic insti­tu­tions, such as houses of wor­ship, uni­ver­si­ties, pro­fes­sional asso­ci­a­tions, local gov­ern­ments and com­mu­nity groups. Free and just soci­eties require habits of self-government that con­tribute to the rule of law. And free and just soci­eties ulti­mately depend on the emer­gence of an engaged pub­lic whose cit­i­zens feel they have a real stake in their nation’s future. All these devel­op­ments con­tribute to the bond between gov­ern­ment and the gov­erned, between a peo­ple and their nation.

Free and just soci­eties also cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for their cit­i­zens. This oppor­tu­nity begins with eco­nomic growth. In any soci­ety, the great­est resource is not the oil in the ground or the min­er­als beneath the soil. It is the skills and tal­ents of the peo­ple. Or as one Nobel win­ning econ­o­mist calls this human cap­i­tal. Across this region, you have an abun­dance of human cap­i­tal — in the men and women who are your cit­i­zens. By strength­en­ing your edu­ca­tion sys­tems and open­ing your economies, you will unlock their poten­tial, cre­ate vibrant and entre­pre­neur­ial soci­eties, and usher in a new era where peo­ple have con­fi­dence that tomor­row will bring more oppor­tu­ni­ties than today.”

I agree whole­heart­edly, and I’ve writ­ten about these points in this series.

“I rec­og­nize that some peo­ple — includ­ing some in my own coun­try — believe it is a mis­take to sup­port demo­c­ra­tic free­dom in the Mid­dle East. They say that the Arab peo­ple are not “ready” for democ­racy. Of course, that is exactly what peo­ple said about the Japan­ese after World War II.”

Past per­for­mance is no guar­an­tee of future results. Just because some­thing did not work in the past does not mean it will not work in the future. Just because some­thing did work in the past does not mean that it will work in the future.

“The Israelis have raised a thriv­ing mod­ern soci­ety out of rocky soil, and want to live their lives in free­dom and secu­rity at home and at peace with their neigh­bors. The Pales­tin­ian peo­ple aspire to build a nation of their own — where they can live in dig­nity and real­ize their dreams. Today Israelis and Pales­tini­ans each under­stand that the only way to real­ize their own goals is by help­ing one another. In other words, an inde­pen­dent, viable, demo­c­ra­tic, and peace­ful Pales­tin­ian state is more than the dream of the Pales­tini­ans. It’s also the best guar­an­tee for peace for all its neigh­bors — and the Israelis under­stand this. Lead­ers on both sides still have many tough deci­sions ahead, and they will need to back these deci­sions with real com­mit­ments. But the time has come for a Holy Land where Pales­tin­ian and Israeli live together in peace.”

I agree. My ideas for an Israel-Palestinian peace are here. How­ever, the gen­eral for­mula is obvi­ous: Israel needs to divide Jerusalem, the Pales­tini­ans need to sur­ren­der the right of return to Israel proper, Israel needs to with­draw from all or most of the West Bank, and the Pales­tini­ans need to stop all attacks on Israel and Israelis.