January 30, 2005

The New York Times

WASHINGTON — ON the eve of war two years ago, President Bush said a democratic regime in Iraq "would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example for other nations in the region." Since then, there have been elections in Afghanistan and among the Palestinians that, along with the prospect of self-rule in Iraq, have stirred ripples of reform and hope in parts of the Middle East.

But today, as Iraqis vote in their first modern election, the war in Iraq is also transforming the Middle East and its relations with the United States in directions the Bush administration might not have expected.

Even many of the region's skeptics about the war say Iraq might, in the end, build a relatively stable democracy. But some of America's most steadfast allies, knowing how shaky their own hold on power is, fear that the Iraqi insurgency may encourage violent anti-government dissidents or Islamic militants in their own countries.

Among many ordinary Arabs, moreover, Iraq's example also has been more alarming than inspiring. Whatever hopes these citizens have for democracy, they have started to wonder if Iraq has paid a high price to get there by first descending into violence, sectarian strife and greater susceptibility to those who preach hatred of the United States.

Two questions are on their minds: Even if democracy takes root and grows in Iraq, will a more stable Middle East follow? And if civil war consumes Iraq, how quickly will instability engulf its neighbors?

"We had the power to reshuffle the deck of cards in the Middle East," said Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland. "But we never had the power to make sure how they would fall."

Beyond the general concern about instability is a shared concern in Sunni-ruled countries - Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the smaller oil-rich states of the Persian Gulf - that the greatest beneficiary of the war so far has been not Iraq, but Shiite-dominated Iran. Empowering Iraq's Shiite majority, they fear, will embolden Shiites elsewhere to challenge their own ruling Sunni Muslim classes. This, in turn, could encourage a spread of Iranian influence that was held in check by Iraq when it was ruled by Sunni kings and dictators.

Jordan's ruler, King Abdullah II, traveled to Washington recently to express the fears of the region's Sunni majority that an arc of Shiite influence could soon extend from Iran through Iraq to Iran's ally Syria and to Syria's puppet, Lebanon.

Bush administration officials have been pleading with Arab leaders not to overreact to such fears; a senior State Department official dismissed the king's comments recently as "racist anti-Shiite paranoia." But this official acknowledged that such fears have spread through the Arab world, and an Iraqi who has advised the State Department went further, suggesting that they could prompt Jordan and Saudi Arabia - and some elements in Syria - to let Sunni insurgents in Iraq be supported from their territory.

"The Sunnis in Iraq may make up only 20 percent of the population, but they are a skilled minority that has strategic depth among Iraq's neighbors," the former adviser said, referring to Iraq's Sunni Arabs (but not to its Kurds, who are also Sunni Muslims). "Support from Jordan and Saudi Arabia is a force multiplier for them."

Iraq's Shiite leaders, who have been among the most enthusiastic supporters of the election today, have steadfastly maintained that a pluralist democracy, not Iran's theocracy, is their model for government, and Iran itself has tacitly blessed their approach. Nevertheless, the war strengthened Iran's position in the region by removing its worst enemy, Saddam Hussein, and whatever new regime takes hold in Iraq is likely to have friendly ties to Tehran.

Iran has also been making a big investment of resources in the social welfare, religious and political institutions of Iraq's Shiites. "There is only one country that is really doing nation-building in Iraq, and it isn't the United States," said an Arab diplomat sardonically. "It's Iran."

Bush administration officials take seriously the potential danger of an increasingly self-confident government in Tehran, given its history of supporting terrorism against Israel and antagonism toward America.

Hawks in the Bush administration say they believe that a successful democracy in Iraq could encourage democratic forces in Iran, who would presumably be less hostile to American goals in the region.

Until that happens, however, it seems clear that the United States will keep threatening action against Iran to keep it from acquiring nuclear arms, even as France, Britain and Germany try to achieve the same result by negotiating a deal with its current rulers.

Political repercussions in Sunni Arab lands are hardly the only ripples extending out from the war in the region. The demand of Kurds in northern Iraq for a continuation of autonomy, and for possession of their region's oil wealth, troubles Turkey, which has its own problems with a restive Kurdish minority. The Turks fear that the political process in Iraq might upset a delicate balance in the north, especially if the Kurdish majority there expels many Arabs or seizes oilfields there.

For Israelis, meanwhile, the war has brought both new hopes and fears. The prospect of an emboldened Iran deeply unsettles them at a time when the West is trying to persuade Iran to give up its presumed nuclear ambitions. Israel sees those ambitions as a mortal threat.

Still, Israeli leaders take great satisfaction that Saddam Hussein is gone; with Iraq no longer a threat, they even say, it is easier for Israelis to think about permitting a Palestinian state on the West Bank.

Not surprisingly, the war is having an opposite effect on Arab opinion. Many experts and analysts say it has widened a gulf in the Arab world between the high-minded strategy of leaders aligned with Washington and the seething anger of their people. In Egypt, for example, the barrage of reporting about the violence in Iraq, which is portrayed on Al Jazeera and other Arab media outlets as an uprising against the American occupation, makes it harder for President Hosni Mubarak to ally himself with the United States in brokering an end to the standoff between Israel and the Palestinians.

A survey of 3,500 Arab citizens in six countries, organized by Professor Telhami and conducted by Zogby International, found last year that most citizens regard Iraqis as worse off under American occupation than they were under Saddam Hussein. Most, it found, accuse the United States of being motivated not by a desire to spread democracy, but by an interest in Arab oil, a stronger Israel and a weaker Muslim world.

Some advocates of democracy in the Arab world caution against dismissing the possibility that slow but significant changes are occurring beneath the surface of such attitudes. They point to the election of Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian president, saying it may have greater consequences in the short run than the Iraqi elections.

"The Iraqi elections are taking place under an American occupation, and the Palestinian elections took place under an Israeli occupation," said Hisham Melhem, Washington bureau chief of the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir. "People in the Middle East will start saying, 'My God, if Iraqis and Palestinians are gaining power even under an occupation, why can't we gain power?' "

Administration officials also are hoping that the Iraqi and Palestinian elections have begun to make kings and dictators in the Middle East look over their shoulders nervously, which suggests that the Americans are willing to risk a period of short-term instability in pursuit of a long-term transition to a democratic region.

But some experts fear that these same authoritarian Muslim leaders may respond by cracking down on dissent, and appealing to Washington to back them up if the alternative is chaos and an overthrow of their regimes.

"Iraq is seen in the region as an example of chaos resulting from change, not democracy," said Martin Indyk, who was a top Middle East policy maker under President Clinton. "I don't think the people or leaders of the Arab world see it as a model they would want to emulate. For authoritarian rulers in the region, the fact that Saddam fell so easily increases their own sense of vulnerability toward their people. They're worried that their own people will see them as paper tigers, too."

In the long run, the largest challenge for the United States will be to work with its historic allies - Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia especially, and other Persian Gulf states - to respond to the changes in Iraq by nurturing their own reforms. But it is not at all clear that this will happen, as the problems ahead of the winners in today's election and the recent election among the Palestinians demonstrate.

For both the Iraqis and the Palestinians, the new leaders will have to satisfy impatient, angry citizens. Iraqis want more than democracy; they want stability, but they also want the Americans to leave soon. Palestinians want more than democracy; they want justice, as they see it, for their people. Many in the Arab world say that the Americans are critical to achieving both goals - as a broker between Palestinians and Israelis, and as a quick rebuilder of Iraq - but that recent American policies have helped worsen, not solve, the problems that the new Iraqi and Palestinian voters face.

Democracy may be the goal for Mr. Bush. But if democracy is to work, it has to deliver other goods. And helping newly elected leaders succeed, even when they follow their people and disagree with American policies, may prove to be the biggest challenge for the United States.