March 18, 2005, 7:55 a.m.
Contagious
Freedom is spreading.

By David B. Rivkin Jr. & Glenn Sulmasy

While the security situation in Iraq remains unsettled two years after the invasion, the January 30 election was a watershed — a historic first step toward democracy in that country. Equally important, the image of millions of Iraqis, bravely defying terrorist threats and going to the polls (and the ongoing democratic transformation in Afghanistan) has had a profound impact on the Middle East. In a very real sense, the invasion of Iraq, once mocked by the critics as the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time, and as a drain on American global prestige, has kindled the flames of liberty throughout the region.

  

As Walid Jumblatt, the leader of the Lebanese Druze community and an erstwhile critic of the U.S.'s regime-change policy in Iraq has put it candidly: “This process of [democratic] change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, eight million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world.” Now, as described in a recent Washington Post article, the much talked-about "Arab street" resonates with praises for the U.S. policies that “light a fire under their [tyrants'] feet.”

Thus, to the evident shock and dismay of the administration's critics, crisply manifested by a recent headline — “Could George W. Bush Be Right?” — in the left-leaning German magazine Der Spiegel, the Bush Doctrine is working. The administration’s policy, vividly described in Bush’s 2005 inaugural speech, fuses the moral and realpolitik dimensions of American statecraft. Its Wilsonian side rejects the legitimacy of undemocratic regimes, envisioning instead the use of a broad panoply of economic, diplomatic and, in exceptional circumstances, military pressures to promote democracy.

Meanwhile, the Jacksonian component recognizes that the status quo in the Middle East over the past four decades has been a failure — retarding economic growth and producing misery for its people — and that, for several distinct reasons, this state of affairs has harmed American security.

To begin with, although even democratic polities are not immune to the scourge of homegrown terrorism, it is the failed and repressive states of the greater Middle East that have been the primary breeding ground of Islamist fanaticism, xenophobia and terrorism. While militarily prosecuting the fight against remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and assorted jihadis in Iraq properly remains the core component in America's war against Islamist terrorists, this conflict cannot be won without draining the fetid swamps of oppression, poverty and corruption in the region.

Another adverse consequence of the Middle East’s status quo is the palpable tendency by a number of the region’s oppressive regimes, including Saddam Hussein-era Iraq, Assad’s Syria, and Iran under the mullahs — in part to deflect attention from their domestic legitimacy deficit — to conduct reckless, expansionist, and anti-American policies, seeking to cast themselves as the modern-day Saladins. (This trait is not unique to the Middle East and has been exhibited by many a rogue regime, ranging from Zimbabwe’s Mugabe to Venezuela’s Chavez.)

The U.S.'s ability to bring such regimes to heel has helped expose their military and diplomatic frailty. Since the very survival of these government regimes ultimately rests on their ability to inspire fear and awe, this perception of infirmity encourages democratic forces to challenge them in the streets and press for reforms.

Significantly, the brutal behavior of our enemies, designed to intimidate and frighten their opponents, has instead helped to invigorate the democratic forces. For example, in the process of trying to block the ongoing democratic transformation in Iraq, the Islamist forces have resorted to such illegal combat tactics as wholesale attacks on the civilian population and, in the infamous words of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, “have declared a bitter war against the principle of democracy and all those who seek to enact it.” These developments have helped to delegitimize the jihadis in the eyes of ordinary people throughout the region and expose them for what they are — brutal murderers and thugs, who violate the most fundamental and obligatory precepts of Islam. Meanwhile, the fact that the jihadis have manifestly failed to shake the resolve of the majority of the Iraqi people or to dislodge the U.S. forces has robbed them of much of their mystique as the allegedly invincible Islamic warriors.

These gradual, yet definite, shifts in the Islamic public opinion — some attributable to the administration’s pro-democracy ventures and others stemming from the justifiable revulsion against the excesses of the Islamist forces — are a key strategic development. It is worth recalling that, during the Cold War, a majority of the captive populations living under the Communist regimes admired the West in general and the U.S. in particular, while despising their own rulers. Unfortunately, for a number of years, the populations of the Middle East, while clearly unhappy with their authoritarian governments and generally dissatisfied with their economic, political and cultural plight, also routinely espoused strong anti-American feelings and expressed considerable support for radical Islamist movements. (This state of affairs was not conducive to the democratic transformations and actually buttressed the survivability of the existing repressive regimes in the region.) Although such sentiments have not evaporated overnight, they are now being challenged in the Islamic marketplace of ideas.