Rapidly developing events across the broader Middle East and North Africa, with protesters calling for democracy and human rights and challenging authoritarian rulers from Morocco to Iran, are presenting testing policy challenges for the Obama administration in a region where many key strategic U.S. interests are at stake.
The administration has been criticized for being behind events and for its mixed messages on the recent protests that led to the resignation of President Mubarak in Egypt. These criticisms are not without foundation, but while recent events in Tunisia and Egypt were long foreseen, they were hardly predictable.
A stern challenge that the administration now faces is how to demonstrate consistent support for values of human rights and democracy that President Obama has identified as in the national interest of the United States across a range of diverse countries with radically different types of relationship with the United States.
In policy terms, the simplest to respond to are countries like Iran or Syria, which are adversarial towards the United States and where the U.S. bi-lateral relationship affords few opportunities for exerting influence over events. Criticizing repressive actions against pro-democracy protesters is an easy call for the administration, with the main challenge being avoiding giving the appearance of being in any way a driving force behind pro-democracy movements in those countries. President Obama has generally done well in not giving the Iranian leaders a credible pretext to dismiss Iranian pro-democracy activists as American implants.
A second category would encompass countries where the risks of instability and the collapse of state institutions may present more danger than the continuation of authoritarian rule. Yemen is the best example of this type of challenge, although countries like Algeria and Lebanon present the risk that anti-government protests might re-ignite deep seated inter-communal conflicts that have previously erupted in civil wars. Libya has lived under an extremely repressive regime for decades and there is a lack of state institutions or independent civil society organizations able to fill a vacuum if the Gaddafi regime is displaced. While the U.S. has interests in all of these countries, its ability to exert strong influence over their rulers is limited and its capacity to manage or even contain convulsions that might arise even more so. To respond to challenges that have emerged in Libya or other similar situations the U.S. must work effectively through the United Nations and other multilateral organizations to combat violence and instability and promote human rights.
A third category includes close U.S. allies where the extent of cooperation raises expectations that the U.S. government should have some influence over government actions, but U.S. concern over oil supplies from Saudi Arabia or military basing rights in Bahrain, for example, constrains the administration's ability to criticize repression of pro-democracy protesters too forcefully.
The fourth category includes close allies that have been beneficiaries of substantial U.S. support - chief among them Egypt, but also Tunisia, Morocco and Jordan. Former presidents Mubarak and Ben Ali were widely viewed as U.S.- backed despots, and the reputation of the United States among people in the region suffered through association with their excesses and failures. In countries where the United States carries influence by virtue of its aid relationship, military cooperation and other support it also carries responsibility to exercise that influence in such a way that serves the legitimate interests of the people in those countries. Such close relationships provide the best opportunity for the U.S. government to put into practice its stated commitment to supporting governments that reflect the will of the people and uphold human rights.
The Obama administration needs to show greater faith, more consistently than it has managed to date, in the core principles on which it claims to base its international relations. When President Obama delivered his address to the Muslim world in Cairo he pledged that the United States would support human rights everywhere, and emphasized the U.S. government's commitment to the spread of representative government throughout the region.
The importance and wisdom of these commitments has been borne out by recent events. The idea that authoritarianism, whatever its faults, provides stability no longer applies to a region in turmoil. Countries where authoritarianism had been given the freest rein, like Libya, now present the most daunting challenges for U.S. policy and for the international community. How can violence be contained and a peaceful transition towards democracy set in motion in a country dominated by suffocating authoritarian rule for so long?
These and other taxing policy dilemmas are the consequences of a flawed U.S. policy towards the region that dates back many decades. The wave of protests and popular demands for more political freedom sweeping across the region present the Obama administration with a unique opportunity to place U.S. relations with the countries of the Middle East on a new, more sustainable and more mutually beneficial footing. Instead of reaching accommodations with unsavory autocrats, and having to deal with the harmful side-effects of these relationships - from endemic corruption and economic torpor to widespread anti-American sentiment and fostering conditions conducive to the spread of extremism and terrorism - the United States can now aspire to build relationships of partnership and mutual respect with more democratic governments in at least some countries in the region. These in turn, having freed themselves from tyranny and oppression, will set a positive example that will exert a positive influence throughout the region for years to come.