DATE=08/14/2003

TYPE=ON THE LINE

NUMBER=1-01376

TITLE=DEMOCRACY AND EXTREMISM

INTERNET=Yes

EDITOR=OFFICE OF POLICY 619-0037

CONTENT=PLEASE NOTE: This is the script for the Friday UTC show. Saturday and Sunday script TK.

THEME: UP, HOLD UNDER AND FADE

Host: Fighting terrorism with freedom.

[music]

Host: Now that the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein is gone, the U.S.-led coalition is encouraging Iraqis to begin building a democratic nation that respects individual rights and freedom. President George W. Bush says he hopes a democratic Iraq will inspire reform among other countries in the region. In a recent speech, the President's National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, said that "it's important to take the fight to the terrorists themselves." But it isn't enough. "We must address the source of the problem," she said.

[SOT Condoleezza Rice, August 7, 2003] The Middle East is a region of tremendous potential. It is the birthplace and spiritual home of three of the world's great faiths, and an ancient center of learning, and tolerance, and progress. And yet, today, the Middle East, a region of twenty-two countries has a combined population of 300 million, and a G-D-P less than that of Spain. It is a region suffering from what leading Arab intellectuals call a political and economic 'freedom deficit.' And it is a region where hopelessness provides a fertile ground for ideologies that convince promising youths to aspire not a university education, a career, or a family, but to blowing themselves up, taking as many innocent lives with them as possible."

[End of SOT]

Host: Is the lack of freedom and opportunity in the Middle East the root cause of terrorism? I'll ask my guests: Ali Al-Ahmed, executive director of the Saudi Institute; Matthew Levitt, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy; and Joshua Muravchik, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Welcome and thanks for joining us.

Ali Al-Ahmed, are you convinced by Condoleezza Rice's argument that there's a freedom deficit behind terrorism?

Al-Ahmed: I think I'm so pleased that Dr. Rice came up and said the things that she said. It's wonderful, and I think she has it right. The problem of the Middle East not only is that we have some young terrorists going and fighting and killing, but who produce this environment -- who produce these people -- they are the regimes who have failed the people in many, many fields when it comes to education, communications, simple life, in addition to a lack of freedom and individual rights. These factors combined produce extremism and terrorism. I think, in a way, some of those terrorist acts against the West were kind of a scream for help from the people. "Maybe they will care about us if we come and attack you and kill you."

Host: Matthew Levitt, is terrorism a result of the failure of the regimes in the region?

Levitt: The regimes are part of the problem. I think that this deficit that Dr. Rice certainly describes the environment in which terrorists are able to manipulate people and recruit people. It's conducive to terrorism. Terrorism, of course, has happened in the West as well. This is not something that's only happened in the Middle East. But the fact is that we have an environment in the Middle East today that is extremely conducive to recruiting young individuals who don't have much hope, and when you add on top of that other frustrations, you have a situation where terrorists have it really very easy. Dealing with the issues that Dr. Rice described is not going to put an end to terrorism, but it will make the Middle East a less compelling place for terrorists to operate.

Host: Josh Muravchik, if one thinks of someone who has been denied opportunities, economic or otherwise, one doesn't normally think of someone like Usama Bin Laden, who had great wealth and could do anything he wanted in the world. So how does that fit in with this notion of a freedom deficit?

Muravchik: Well, I don't think the problem really is explained very well in terms of denied opportunities. The terrorists, some of them are poor youngsters. Some of them are wealthy youngsters. But I think the freedom deficit works in a different way, which is, in this region, you have on the one hand, many of the governments themselves which encourage terrorism and support terrorist groups, and on the other hand, you have other governments that are -- whether they support terrorism or not -- very repressive. And so people in those systems who have differences of opinion or grievances against their governments have no, what we could consider, normal way to express those grievances. I think that when you have a situation in which there's no democracy and no freedom, it conduces to extremism. If people don't get used to sort of the peaceful give and take -- "I disagree with you; you disagree with me; let's talk about it. Let's vote about it" -- all of politics comes down to violence. In fact, all the regimes of that region not being democratically elected, ultimately their power does rest on violence, on having greater control of the means of coercion than whoever their opponents might be. When you have a kind of mindset in which politics is carried out by means of violence, then it's really a very small step to say, well, if you have a grievance against the outside world, that you must carry out that grievance by violence too.

Host: Ali Al-Ahmed, do you think there's a culture of violence there?

Al-Ahmed: That's true. All peaceful means of dialogue or resolving differences have been halted by the governments. The only way the governments deal with you is violence. They put you in jail; they kill you; they torture you. They have encouraged -- they have limited the options of the people to solve political differences. Another thing is lack of freedom has prevented local elements from fighting extremism and fighting terrorism. For example, in Saudi Arabia, those people who speak against extremism are banned or fired. The extremists know they are allowed to flourish. This, in my opinion, is because those regimes, they want to create a gap between the population of the regime and the West. They can play both sides. They can come to the West and say, "Look, we are your best friends in the region. You have to help us to keep these savages down." Then they go these "savages", -- their people -- and they say, "You know, those Westerners are very bad and corrupt and they want to get you, so you have to fight them." This is the name of the game for right now. It's been going on for a while. Keep the people busy with superstitions and animosity with the distant powers. Of course, now the power of communications has brought us closer. The problem mainly is the governments. I think the governments are the main problem. The terrorists and so on, it's basically just a secretion or a symptom of the lack of freedom.

Host: Matt Levitt, Ali Ahmed says that terrorism is something of a function of this double game being played by governments in the region. What do you think?

Levitt: That certainly is a part of it. Saudi Arabia has tolerated extremism for some time. If you go to the mosques and you listen to the sermons, the sermons that are being given by preachers who are paid by the government are very extreme and are teaching hatred. If you look at the textbooks, [they're] teaching hatred. But there are two parts to this. One is the regimes that tolerate and, in some cases, facilitate this type of extremism, and long enough spectrum of extremism, up to and including terrorism; and then there are the terrorist groups themselves who, for their own reasons, are engaging in these types of activities. And I think that what Josh said is very accurate. One of the reasons that terrorist groups have been targeting the West is because, one, they've been targeting their local regimes which have been repressing them, and therefore denying them any other means of expression. Once those regimes have clamped down on them very, very harshly, many of these terrorist groups came to the conclusion that what they really had to do was target America and the West, which they perceived as being the backers of these regimes. And therefore, they brought us and the West much closer into their crosshairs or their targeting.

Host: Josh Muravchik, that raises the issue of the relationship the West and the U-S has had with many of these regimes that are being mentioned by the President and by Condoleezza Rice as not being free regimes. How does the U-S and the rest of the West make a transition here to promoting freedom and democracy with some of these regimes that have been friends of the West?

Muravchik: Well, it's a difficult question. We've taken the first step in that, for the first time, we want to do that. Up until now, I think we had a quite condescending view toward the Arabs, or toward that region, which is to say, "We encourage democracy for Europeans or Latin Americans, but the Arabs, we don't think they can do democracy."

Ahmed: The "savages."

Muravchik: The "savages." And as long as the regimes will do business with us, then we best leave them well enough alone. We've learned in a very tragic way that ultimately, that's going to backfire. And it has backfired. So now we want to do something different, and I think we're starting out with two things. One is, we've knocked down one regime in Iraq which was the most threatening to us of these tyrannical regimes, and we've committed ourselves to trying to [produce] a democracy in Iraq, which we hope will be a model. Secondly, without knocking down other regimes, we need to start changing all kinds of messages that we've been giving to the region about what we want. And we do that in our diplomacy, in our foreign aid, in our broadcasting, and start to say that a big part of how we will evaluate regimes in that area is dependent on whether they are liberalizing and moving toward democratizing and freedom. And the final thing is that we must turn and find people in the region who are themselves democrats, who want to bring freedom within their own countries, whether they're living within their countries, or whether they're forced to be in exile -- wherever they are. We have to give them a helping hand.

Host: Ali Al-Ahmed, let's talk about this with reference to Saudi Arabia. Particularly, how does the U-S deal with the history of its relationship with Saudi Arabia, and yet wanting to promote freedom and democracy?

Al-Ahmed: I think the problem in the past, as Josh said, the West in general, they really looked at the Arab population with, I think, a racist view. They didn't think they deserved the support of contacts. They only dealt with those dictatorial regimes, those regimes who are totally in their beliefs and their practices against any Western value when it comes to democracy and freedom and so on. They oppressed their people to the point that it made the West [the] enemy of the people, and, if you talk to regular people, this is why they are angry at the West, not because the West is Christian or Jewish, or whatever, but because of the political situation -- that they are [the] supporter of their oppressors. The West, they have to change this. They have to change it because [of] September 11th. They have to change it because they have to believe -- I think it's the duty of free countries to spread freedom and export democracy to other people. It is in the best -- in the strategic interest of the West and the United States to support, for example, why don't we export with American cars, why don't we export Americanism, American ideas and values of governance, transparency, justice, and human rights. Instead of bombs, I think you spend less money and effort, and you get better result exporting values or freedom and dignity. The people in the region --

Host: How do you that, though, without offending the sensibilities of people that somehow they're being invaded culturally, if you will?

Al-Ahmed: We are -- you have already invaded culturally. We are being invaded [by] the bad culture. We are eating McDonald's, and Burger King, and we watch "Baywatch", and "Seinfeld", but we are not hearing about Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, and [John F.] Kennedy, and James Madison, and all those great Americans. We want to hear this. This is why, I've suggested myself, to the administration here: they should open American [cultural] centers to teach Saudis about American freedom and democracy. Of course, they are not doing that. They are opening telephones, and selling T-V shows, but not selling America, the democratic nation. That's what we need. We need bold steps in that direction.

Host: Well, Condoleezza Rice talked about just this issue, and why don't we take a listen for a second to what she had to say?

[SOT Condoleezza Rice]

"Like the transformation of Europe, the transformation of the Middle East will require a commitment of many years. I do not mean that we will need to maintain a military presence in Iraq as was the case in Europe. I do mean that America and her friends and allies must engage broadly throughout the region, across many fronts, including diplomatic, economic, and in helping to establish institutions of civil society. And, as in Europe, our efforts must work in full partnership with the peoples of the region who share our commitment to human freedom, and who see it in their own self-interest to defend that commitment."

[End of SOT]

Host: Matt Levitt, what should that kind of involvement look like?

Levitt: Well, I think from what Dr. Rice said and what you've heard from your other guests really indicates that we need to be talking to the people on the ground. There's a little bit of a "Catch-22." If we're trying to change the way regimes in the region operate, and we only engage through the regimes, we're not going to get anywhere. These regimes have a vested interest in the status quo. Democracy does not necessarily mean that they'll stay in power, and that they'll have the preferred status that they've enjoyed. We need to be talking to people on the ground. Now, on the one hand, the people on the ground, they like American culture already. They like coming to America. They like what they see about America, and what they say is that it's our politics that concerns them. I think that really, if we were to export less of the popular culture, as Ali was saying, and more of what America is really about in terms of our values, we'd get much farther. It's in the interest of these regimes who have an interest in the status quo to deflect the attention of their constituencies to other issues -- to Iraq, to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, [and] to whatever other issue it is, so that they can say, "Look, we're working on these other issues. You need to support us. Keep us in power." We need to be able to circumvent that without insulting the people who are in positions of power among the local elites right now in a way that still enables us to talk to the domestic population.

Host: Josh Muravchik, what about in a case like Iran, where you have popular dissatisfaction with the government, but it's not leading to the populace committing acts of terrorism against the West, but rather, it's popular dissatisfaction with a government that is itself supporting terrorist organizations. Where do you go in trying to engage that sort of population that's already being oppressed?

Muravchik: Well, we need to just do everything we can to support the Iranian democrats and protesters, and we need to help them with the broadcasting from outside. We need to make strong statements in their defense. There is some sensitivity because we have a history of meddling in Iranian politics, and many Iranians remember that and resent that. But I think we can let the democrats themselves be our guide to how much they want us to embrace and support them. If it reaches a point where they feel they will be compromised by being seen as American agents, then we can pull back, but we ought to give them every possible support that they want to receive.

Host: Well Ali Al-Ahmed, Josh Muravchik uses this word, "meddling." This is one of the big issues that comes from Condoleezza Rice's speech, which is, where do you find that balance between offering support and, instead, "meddling?"

Al-Ahmed: In some countries, they are meddling very heavily, like in Saudi Arabia, with the military bases, and conducting investigations of the country. They are meddling in that sense, but the government will let them meddle as long as that meddling does not effect their status. There must be a balance. I think there should be no meddling, but there should be support. There are a lot of people in Saudi Arabia who are looking for a word from the U-S government, and for a statement for lip service, and they have not gotten it, when it comes to say, "Well, we support human rights in Saudi Arabia," for example. Or, "We think this is wrong. We think [that] when you release terrorist or terrorist supporters from jail, while you keep reformers in jail, or inside the country, and not allowing them to travel." This kind of thing. Human rights, I think, again. If we talk about the State Department speaking about persecution, human rights, and religious freedom, and freedom of the press -- this is the first step. Secondly then, we can put attachments to things, to arms sales, to contracts, to visits. Those people who abuse human rights are not allowed in this country, for example. Any joint project or meeting should have human rights discussed in it. This might encourage Saudi Arabia. I think, for example, the U-S can put these conditions on Saudi Arabia when joining the World Trade Organization like they did with China. They can attach these requests and demands for human rights and more political participation. I think this kind of thing might help and would endear America. You notice that the people who like America are the Russians and the Polish because you helped them topple their regimes and change their realities. If you want to do that to Saudi Arabia, you have to support the people.

Host: Matt Levitt, has the U-S been insufficiently vocal in its support for human rights and democracy in Saudi Arabia?

Levitt: There's certainly more that can be done. There's more that can be done in Iran too. These are obviously complicated issues where there's delicate balancing going on. For example, in an effort to fight the war on terrorism, we need the Saudis' support in certain critical issues. Sometimes that support is more forthcoming. More often than not, it's not. But in particular instances in time, we're going to be less comfortable pushing them on human rights issues because of more immediate and pressing issues. And that's an unfortunate reality in the conduct of international relations. I think the issue of meddling is sometimes an issue of semantics. All of these regimes that have an interest in the status quo are going to use the word meddling or some other form of it. When it comes to an outside country, organization, or party, talking about human rights, democracy or, "One man, one vote" -- hopefully not just one time -- the people who are going to be threatened by that, the elites who have an interest in the status quo, are going to call that meddling. They're going to say, "Outside parties should not be interfering in our domestic affairs." I think that we need to focus our attention on ways of reaching out to the local constituencies in such a way that we can still talk to them without offending the elites.

Host: I'm afraid that's going to have to be the last word. We're out of time for today. I'd like to thank my guests for joining me for today: Ali Al-Ahmed of the Saudi Institute, Matt Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and Josh Muravchik of the American Enterprise Institute. Before we go, I'd like to invite you to send us your questions and comments. You can e-mail them to: ontheline at I-B-B dot G-O-V. For On the Line, I'm Eric Felten.