Wednesday, February 04, 2004
Bernard Lewis and the "Lewis Doctrine"
An astute reader called my attention to an article on the front page of yesterday's Wall Street Journal devoted to Bernard Lewis' influence on the Bush Administration's ambitions to bring democracy -- or at least some form of consensual government -- to the Arab states of the Middle East and North Africa. Unfortunately, the WSJ doesn't make its intellectual property available for free, so you'll have to root around in the recycling pile or steal some Lexis/Nexis time from your employer if you want to read it. Too bad, because it describes in lay terms the etiology of the Bush Administration's "democratization" strategy in Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world. If you can get your hands on the article, by all means do so.
The article's lead reveals Lewis' core belief that Islam's rage against the West derives from its own failure to deal effectively with the outside world, at least since its expansionist phase ended at the gates of Vienna in 1683:
The Princeton University historian ... says he was chatting with Arab friends in Amman when one of them trotted out an argument familiar in that part of the world.
"We have time, we can wait," he quotes the Jordanian as saying. "We got rid of the Crusaders. We got rid of the Turks. We'll get rid of the Jews."
Hearing this claim "one too many times," Mr. Lewis says, he politely shot back, "Excuse me, but you've got your history wrong. The Turks got rid of the Crusaders. The British got rid of the Turks. The Jews got rid of the British. I wonder who is coming here next."
Lewis has been addressing this point for a long time. In 1990, he published an article in The Atlantic -- "The Roots of Muslim Rage" -- that presaged Samuel Huntington's "clash of civilization" thesis. Just after September 11, he published What Went Wrong?, an article-length summary of which you can read here.
The WSJ fingers Lewis as enormously influential within the Administration, and credits him with having pushed it away from the view that Arab Muslims hate the U.S. because America is "misunderstood," or for its policies concerning Israel. So what fruit will the Lewis Doctrine bear?
I know too little to assess Lewis' basic diagnosis -- that the lack of legitimate consensual governments and the legacy of commercial, cultural and military failure in the Arab Middle East is at the root of Muslim rage. Since it is for the time being the supposition of Bush Administration foreign policy that these are in fact the causes of the causes of terrorism, as it were, what should the West do?
The Bush Administration has - publicly at least - declared that we must bring "democracy" to the region, starting with Iraq. Critics of this prescription make three arguments against this position.
First, critics argue that we cannot succeed in this endeavor. This argument comes in right brain and left brain versions. The right brain version declares that you cannot create democracy "at the point of a gun." The left brain version declares that the basic institutions of civil society necessary to support a democratic system -- a free press, free markets, honest judges and cops, a tradition of non-violent dissent and loyal opposition -- do not exist in these countries and will not in our lifetime.
Second, there are clearly those who believe that even if we could create democracy in the region, we wouldn't want to. This argument also comes in at least two versions. Those who care about the people in the region say that we might be able to generate "one man, one vote, one time," but that after the first election or two the system would revert to form and single-party rule would return. The situation would probably be worse than leaving well enough alone, because of the Middle Eastern tradition of exacting vengeance on political, ethnic, tribal and religious enemies. This argument is really another version of the first group of objections -- that the Arabs aren't ready for democracy.
Those who focus on American or western interests rather than the inherent justice of consensual government say that the people of most countries, including the kingdoms of the gulf, would elect governments far more detrimental to American interests than those that are in power today. In this view, implacable Islamic republics would govern from Cairo to Riyadh to Baghdad, the failure would compound, and the rage would explode, this time with state backing.
Third, I have also heard the argument that even the Bush Administration does not want to bring democracy to the region, and that all of this rhetoric is really a smokescreen to cover the less palatable objectives in Iraq and American expansionism generally in the region.
That's the landscape, I think. In the next few days I will follow up with my answers to these questions. Of course, readers comments and emails are more than welcome. Bring it on!
The article's lead reveals Lewis' core belief that Islam's rage against the West derives from its own failure to deal effectively with the outside world, at least since its expansionist phase ended at the gates of Vienna in 1683:
The Princeton University historian ... says he was chatting with Arab friends in Amman when one of them trotted out an argument familiar in that part of the world.
"We have time, we can wait," he quotes the Jordanian as saying. "We got rid of the Crusaders. We got rid of the Turks. We'll get rid of the Jews."
Hearing this claim "one too many times," Mr. Lewis says, he politely shot back, "Excuse me, but you've got your history wrong. The Turks got rid of the Crusaders. The British got rid of the Turks. The Jews got rid of the British. I wonder who is coming here next."
Lewis has been addressing this point for a long time. In 1990, he published an article in The Atlantic -- "The Roots of Muslim Rage" -- that presaged Samuel Huntington's "clash of civilization" thesis. Just after September 11, he published What Went Wrong?, an article-length summary of which you can read here.
The WSJ fingers Lewis as enormously influential within the Administration, and credits him with having pushed it away from the view that Arab Muslims hate the U.S. because America is "misunderstood," or for its policies concerning Israel. So what fruit will the Lewis Doctrine bear?
I know too little to assess Lewis' basic diagnosis -- that the lack of legitimate consensual governments and the legacy of commercial, cultural and military failure in the Arab Middle East is at the root of Muslim rage. Since it is for the time being the supposition of Bush Administration foreign policy that these are in fact the causes of the causes of terrorism, as it were, what should the West do?
The Bush Administration has - publicly at least - declared that we must bring "democracy" to the region, starting with Iraq. Critics of this prescription make three arguments against this position.
First, critics argue that we cannot succeed in this endeavor. This argument comes in right brain and left brain versions. The right brain version declares that you cannot create democracy "at the point of a gun." The left brain version declares that the basic institutions of civil society necessary to support a democratic system -- a free press, free markets, honest judges and cops, a tradition of non-violent dissent and loyal opposition -- do not exist in these countries and will not in our lifetime.
Second, there are clearly those who believe that even if we could create democracy in the region, we wouldn't want to. This argument also comes in at least two versions. Those who care about the people in the region say that we might be able to generate "one man, one vote, one time," but that after the first election or two the system would revert to form and single-party rule would return. The situation would probably be worse than leaving well enough alone, because of the Middle Eastern tradition of exacting vengeance on political, ethnic, tribal and religious enemies. This argument is really another version of the first group of objections -- that the Arabs aren't ready for democracy.
Those who focus on American or western interests rather than the inherent justice of consensual government say that the people of most countries, including the kingdoms of the gulf, would elect governments far more detrimental to American interests than those that are in power today. In this view, implacable Islamic republics would govern from Cairo to Riyadh to Baghdad, the failure would compound, and the rage would explode, this time with state backing.
Third, I have also heard the argument that even the Bush Administration does not want to bring democracy to the region, and that all of this rhetoric is really a smokescreen to cover the less palatable objectives in Iraq and American expansionism generally in the region.
That's the landscape, I think. In the next few days I will follow up with my answers to these questions. Of course, readers comments and emails are more than welcome. Bring it on!
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