The Foreign Service Journal, January 2009

J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 9 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 35 low at the Council on Foreign Re- lations, told a panel discussion at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute in September 2008 that criticisms of U.S. behav- ior were inevitable as it pressed the freedom agenda. But he said aban- doning authoritarian regimes in the Arab world to their own devices was not a good option, either. “Hypocrisy is an essential element of the democracy promotion [agenda], but when you are looking at alternatives there don’t seem to be any good ones,” Gerson said. The case of Egypt brought criticism of another sort to the administration. Both Pres. Bush in his inaugural ad- dress and Secretary of State Rice in a June 2005 speech in Cairo, called on the Egyptian government to lead the way to democratic change in the Middle East. They also vowed a greater U.S. commitment to spurring freedoms in the region. Nonetheless, Mubarak held flawed presidential elec- tions that kept him in office and sent his main opponent, Ayman Nour, to prison on trumped-up charges. After a strong showing by the Muslim Brotherhood in parlia- mentary elections at the end of 2005 (it won 88 out of 454 seats) the government cracked down on the party, arresting hundreds of its members and harassing others. It effectively banned the Brotherhood from forming a political party by banning political activity based on reli- gion in constitutional amendments passed in March 2007. Authorities also cracked down on a lively civil so- ciety movement, including pro-democracy bloggers. The U.S. response to such moves has been relatively muted. A number of experts point out that the initial Egyptian crackdowns took place as Iraq descended deeper into sectarian strife and Iranian hegemony in the Middle East was growing — just as regional allies were badly needed on a number of fronts. Bush’s repurposing of the Iraq mission to democracy promotion after the country was found not to possess threatening weapons of mass destruction also raised doubts about U.S. aims. In the aftermath of the U.S. military’s ouster of Saddam Hussein, Iraq was wracked by violence from a Sunni-led insurgency, as well as sec- tarian battles between Sunni and majority Shiite forces. Still, the country held three sets of landmark nationwide elections in 2005 and was on course to hold provincial elections in early 2009. The Bush administration says that political reforms are begin- ning to take place amid more se- cure conditions brought about by the U.S.-led military surge in 2007, combined with the Sunni Awakening movement. But many of the 18 reform benchmarks agreed on by Iraqi and U.S. officials in 2006, including a law on sharing oil revenues, remain unmet, and sec- tarian tensions persist in the country. Afghanistan, too, held successful nationwide elections for president and parliament and adopted a constitution after the 2001 removal of the Taliban regime. But the country is far less developed than Iraq, and its interna- tional partners have lagged on reconstruction amid re- ports of rampant corruption, thus opening space for a Taliban resurgence that has gained support from disaf- fected Afghans, particularly in rural areas. A September 2008 report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service found that the Afghan central government is “rel- atively stable, but it is perceived as weak, corrupt and un- responsive to core needs.” Even ahead of the U.S. presidential transition, in which an Obama administration is expected to sharpen the focus on securing and stabilizing Afghanistan, U.S. military officials had undertaken a review of strategy in Afghanistan. Two major elements under consideration were possible government reconciliation with some Tal- iban elements and cooperation with neighboring coun- tries like Pakistan and Iran. The Shadow of Regime Change The spring 2006 announcement of a $75 million boost in democracy promotion efforts in Iran — at a time when the administration was trying to contain wide-scale sec- tarian fighting in neighboring Iraq — immediately drew denunciations, even by some Iranian dissidents, as a cover for regime change. In the absence of official relations and with concerns about U.S. threats over Iran’s nuclear program, some ac- tivists like Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi characterized the U.S. democracy initiative as an intrusion into Iranian do- mestic affairs. In a commentary for the November/De- cember 2008 edition of Foreign Affairs , Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji expressed the desire of his fellow activists F O C U S The George W. Bush administration’s second-term freedom agenda initially rode a wave of momentum.