Jim Lobe on ”In Support of Arab Democracy:Why and How" report/neocon split

[Gloria]

3//Inter Press Service News Agency, Italy Jun 9, 2005

http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=29016


“EVOLUTION” PREFERRED OVER “REVOLUTION” IN ARAB LANDS

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jun 9 (IPS) - The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush should back up its pro-democracy rhetoric in the Middle East with more action and consistency, according to new bipartisan report that also urges Washington to encourage ”evolutionary,” rather than ”revolutionary” change in Arab lands.

The 65-page report by an independent task force sponsored by the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman, also urged Washington to support the full political participation of Islamist groups, so long as they renounced violence and were committed to the democratic process.

At the same time, however, it said the U.S. should promote constitutional mechanisms, such as an independent judiciary or specially chosen legislative chambres to guard against ”the tyranny of the majority” and prevent Islamist movements from ”overwhelm(ing) more open political systems.”

”For better or worse, Islamist movements and political parties are likely to play a prominent role in a more democratic Middle East,” according to the report, ”In Support of Arab Democracy: Why and How.”



SNIP

The risks of empowering radical Islamists through democratic reform have clearly been a major source of concern and debate within the administration and even within particular ideological currents that have backed Bush's hawkish policies.

Neo-conservatives, for example, have split between those, like the director of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), Gary Schmitt, who has called for Washington to directly engage the Muslim Brothers in Egypt, and harder-line figures, such as Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum, who strongly oppose such a move and now consider ”slowing down the democratisation policy in Iraq and elsewhere” to be a major priority of his work.