How We Denied Democracy to the Middle East

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by Robert Fisk

Dissident Voice
November 10, 2003

First Published in The Independent

We created this place, weaned the grotesque dictators. And we expect the Arabs to trust Bush's promise?

It gets weirder and weirder. As his helicopters are falling out of the sky over Iraq, President Bush tells us things are getting even better. The more we succeed, he says, the deadlier the attacks will become. Thank God the Americans now have a few - a very few - brave journalists, like Maureen Dowd, to explain what is happening.

The worse things are, the better they get. Iraq's wartime information minister, "Comical Ali", had nothing on this; he claimed the Americans weren't in Baghdad when we could see their tanks. Bush claims he's going to introduce democracy in the Middle East when his soldiers are facing more than resistance in Iraq. They are facing an insurrection. So let's take a look at the latest lies. "Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe," he told us on Thursday. "Because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty." Well said, Sir. George Bush Jr. sounds almost as convincing as, well, Tony Blair. It's all a lie. "We" - the West, Europe, America - never "excused and accommodated" lack of freedom. We endorsed lack of freedom. We created it in the Middle East and supported it.

When Colonel Ghaddafi took over Libya, the Foreign Office thought him a much sprightlier figure than King Idriss. We supported the Egyptian generals (aka Gamal Abdul Nasser) when they originally kicked out King Farouk. We - the Brits - created the Hashemite Kingdom in Jordan. We - the Brits - put a Hashemite King on the throne of Iraq. And when the Baath party took over from the monarchy in Baghdad, the CIA obligingly handed Saddam's mates the names of all senior communist party members so they could be liquidated.

The Brits created all those worthy sheikhdoms in the Gulf. Kuwait was our doing; Saudi Arabia was ultimately a joint Anglo-US project, the United Arab Emirates (formerly the Trucial State) etc. But when Iran decided in the 1950s that it preferred Mohammed Mossadeq's democratic rule to the Shah's, the CIA's Kim Roosevelt, with Colonel "Monty" Woodhouse of MI6, overthrew democracy in Iran. Now President Bush demands the same "democracy" in present-day Iran and says we merely "excused and accommodated" the loathsome US-supported Shah's regime.

Now let's have another linguistic analysis of Mr. Bush's words. "The failure of Iraqi democracy," he told us two days ago, "would embolden terrorists around the world, increase dangers to the American people, and extinguish the hopes of millions in the region." Here's another take: the failure of the Bush administration to control Israel's settlement-building on Arab land would embolden terrorists around the world, increase dangers to the American people and extinguish the hopes of millions in the region. Now that would be more like it. But no. President Bush thinks Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is "a man of peace".

And then there's that intriguing Bush demand for a revolution in undemocratic Iran. Sure, Iran is a theocratic state (a necrocracy, I suspect), but the morally impressive President Mohamed Khatami, repeatedly thwarted by the dictatorial old divines, was democratically elected - and by a far more convincing majority than President George Bush Jr. in the last US presidential elections.

Yes, "democracy can be the future of every nation", Bush tells us. So why did his country support Saddam's viciousness and war crimes for so many years? Why did Washington give its blessing, at various stages, to Colonel Ghaddafi, Hafez Assad of Syria, the Turkish generals, Hassan of Morocco, the Shah, the sleek Ben Ali of Tunisia, the creepy generals of Algeria, the plucky little King of Jordan and even - breathe in because the UNOCAL boys wanted a gas pipeline through Afghanistan - the Taliban?

A break here. Fouad Siniora is the finance minister of Lebanon. He is a believer in the American way of life, a graduate of the American University of Beirut and a former lecturer there, an ex-executive of Citibank. He has a valid American visa in his passport. Yet he has been telephoned by the American embassy in Beirut to be told he will not be permitted entry to the US.

Why? Because last year he gave $ 660 at a Ramadan fast-breaking iftah to a charity that runs educational projects and orphanages in Lebanon. The organization is run by Sayed Mohamed Fadlallah - once described by the Western press as the "spiritual adviser" to Hizbollah. CIA sources long ago revealed that they tried to kill Fadlallah - they failed, but their Saudi-prepared car bomb killed 75 civilians - so Siniora, an Americanophile to his fingertips, is persona non grata in the US. Fadlallah is not Hizbollah's "spiritual adviser" - so he could hardly withdraw his support for its victory over the Israeli army in Lebanon three years ago - but the loony- tune "security" legislation in the US has deprived Siniora of any further contact with a country he admires.

Yes, roll on democracy. Bring 'em on. The new "Rummyworld" war on terror is in Iraq. Ban the press from filming the return of dead American soldiers to the US. Liberty is what it's about, democracy. "Accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East", indeed. We created this place, drew its borders, weaned their grotesque dictators. And we expect the Arabs to trust Mr. Bush's promise?

Robert Fisk is an award winning foreign correspondent for The Independent (UK), where this article first appeared. He is the author of Pity Thy Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon (The Nation Books, 2002 edition). Posted with author’s permission.

First Published in The Independent

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