Reuters
U.S. Middle East Project to Leave Politics Alone
Date: Sun, Sep 12, 2004
By Laith Abou-Ragheb
DUBAI (Reuters) - A senior U.S. official appointed to a controversial multi-million dollar project to promote democracy in Arab countries insists he will not meddle in the politics of the region.
The Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), conceived two years ago by President Bush (news - web sites) in response to the Sept. 11 attacks and the rise of Islamic militancy, has been met with skepticism by Arab governments wary of U.S. interference.
Along with Washington's broader plan for reform in the Middle East, still being fine-tuned after heavy Arab criticism, MEPI has been undermined by instability in Iraq (news - web sites), the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, and Israeli-Palestinian violence.
But support for political, economic, social and educational reforms in general is growing in the region.
The U.S. government this month set up a MEPI office in Abu Dhabi to cover the Gulf region and Jordan and another in Tunis to cover Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt and Lebanon.
The director of the Abu Dhabi office says he hopes to allay the suspicions of some Arab governments toward the plan.
"I'd like to dispel this fear that we're somehow here to clandestinely fuel opposition groups who want to cause problems for governments in the region. We're after purely structural changes and not political ones," Hans Wechsel told Reuters.
He hopes that support for reform programs, particularly those involving women and young people, will help build an atmosphere of trust between the Middle East and the United States.
"It's by no means a panacea. But we want to help create an environment which will make it more difficult to promote ideologies of hate," Wechsel said.
"We need to find people in the region who want to confront these ideologies and to undermine the manipulation and indoctrination that's necessary to create a terrorist. Expanding political freedom and economic opportunity helps to do that."
ARABS WARY
Commentators say Wechsel has a mountain to climb when it comes to winning the confidence of millions in the region.
"I'm sure they (Arabs) will view it with some skepticism. Very few will accept the scheme at face value," said Dubai-based political analyst Jawad al-Anani. "Many people would love to see some of the program's aims achieved, but they are suspicious of the intentions of the American government.
Since it began, Wechsel said the project has spent around $190 million on helping reform-minded groups and has requested another $150 million for next fiscal year starting in October. MEPI has so far assisted Bahrain in brokering a free trade deal with the United States and hopes to help set up a professional association for women lawyers, he said.
Others say U.S. democracy goals would be better served by solving the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian crisis.
"A lot of people argue there's no point in talking about democratization in countries like Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, unless you start to address the fundamental problem of the Middle East which for most Arabs is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," said Michael Cox of the London School of Economics.
Wechsel said regional extremism was not that clear-cut.
"There are some ideologies of hate in the Middle East coming out of the political and territorial dispute, but there are a lot of acts of terrorism that are not linked to it," he said.
"We have a program in Yemen where we're trying to expand schooling for girls. Why should supporting that hinge on whether you agree with the U.S. stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?"
But Arab governments insist the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is central to many of the region's problems and rejected Washington's original plan for broad reform in the Middle East on the basis that it failed to take that into account.
SOURCE
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