US dilemma in engaging political Islam

Obviously it has portended a period of serious debate in the western media, where questions are asked as to the merit of Bush's Middle East Policy, particularly his democracy projects in a region where the Islamist forces could claim spectacular success in all Palestine, Egypt, and other countries.

But the most significant discourse on the subject is underway rather privately within America's foreign policy establishment which has since been intensely debating the US's relations with political Islam.

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The views are expectedly divergent about America's reliance on the Islamists as principal partners in its efforts for transforming the Arab Islamic world into an oasis of democracy and liberal values.

Oddly enough, it is amongst some segments of the neo-conservative cabal that the controversies are the most strident. Last year, two of the neo-conservaties -- Daniel Pipes, the director of Middle East Forum and Marc Gerecht, a resident fellow of American Enterprise Institute -- entered into a crucial debate entitled: "Should the US support the Islamists?"

Gerecht is a strong proponent of using political Islam to buttress the US interests in the Muslim world. Here follows his argument: The US must support the participation of the Islamists in democratic elections. Since the authoritarian regimes currently in power will not permit the development of democratic institution, the open election should be the first step in the reform process. Islamist political parties must be included in these elections due to their significant popular support because a ban on their participation would only discredit the electoral process, robbing it of its legitimacy.

Gerecht, however recognized that as the Middle East becomes more democratic it will be more anti-US and anti-zionist and the US would be able to do precious little to arrest the trend. Gerecht did not, however, view a support for moderates as a viable alternative due to their lack of popular support base.

Daniel Pipes, on the other hand, argues that facilitating the immediate political participation of the Islamists is tantamount to helping the enemy. He insists that their blind devotion to Sharia, rejection of Western influence, and their totalitarian ideology render them anathema to democratic society. Pipes held that both violent and non-violent Islamists share these characteristics.

He, therefore, concluded that it was preferable to have in powers the western oriented dictators rather than an archaic band of Islamists.

Such opposing views on the subject are not new to US foreign policy making; they are rather product of long standing efforts to formulate a viable and coherent policy towards the Islamic world. At present there are two schools of thought dominating the US attitude towards the problem.

The first school led by Bernard Lewis and his disciple, Samuel Huntington, as well as an arch neo-conservative, Richard Perle, maintain that the political Islam is by definition anti-democratic and anti-West. This school believes that any co-existence even with Islam is simply not possible unless it changes of its basic tenets, considered articles of faith by any Muslim, a "clash of civilization" is thus inevitable.

Incidentally, it was Bernard Lewis who first came up with the theory, and not Huntington as is widely believed, as early as in 1964, when Lewis wrote in his book The Middle East and the West that: "We must view the present discontent in the Middle East not as conflict between the states and nations but as a clash of civilization." The idea gained currency.

The confrontationalists, led by Daniel Pipes, advocate that America can never trust Islamists and must do more to assist the modernists (a euphemism for opportunists) to take power in Muslim countries.

Yet another school of thought led by Prof John Esposito espouses that the West has nothing to fear from political Islam and those Islamists shunning violence can be accommodated.

These accommodationists insist that through the inclusion of Islamists in the government the Muslims will quickly lose confidence in their ability to rule by Islam and will tend to turn secular or moderate. Thus the US will be able to cultivate a healthy relationship with the Islamic world.

Both the confrontationists and accommodationists however recognize that the US's continued supports for Middle East's authoritarian rulers breed anti-West sentiments and are incubators for the Islamic radicalism.

For decades these divergent school of thought competed for influence amongst the policy makers and government officials. For the most part, the successive US government adopted a balanced approach and used political Islam to bolster the US's client states and support Jihad against the communists.

But the demise of the communist empire ushered in a period where the US officials began to search for a new enemy and many ended up subscribing to the two dominant views on political Islam. By sifting through the arguments put forward by different schools of thought, a policy on political Islam was reached in 1992 with the accommodationists prevailing.

The Clinton administration continued to traverse the path followed by previous administrations. The exploitation of political Islam to stabilize dictatorships and protect the US interests throughout the Muslim world became the mainstay of the Clinton era. This was the case till September 11, 2001. There after the new found support for the "clash of civilizations" theory resurfaced and gained momentum in the US with the hawks of the administration embracing it forthwith.

However, a full-scale assault on political Islam was resisted in the aftermath of the US failure to stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead the Bush administration announced a "Greater Middle East initiative" and carefully re-examined its policy towards the Islamists. In some part of the Muslim world it chose to collaborate with Islamists and in others the US opted to minimize their participation in government.

This flexible approach of America towards political Islam leaves the US open to exercise of hypocrisy and reveals its inability to decide on the modalities of permanent engagement with the Islamists.

Brig ( retd) Hafiz is former DG of BIISS.