The people of Egypt have toppled their dictator, which surely ranks among the most remarkable and wonderful human achievements in memory. However, every significant event is an occasion for idiotic and offensive commentary, and this has been no exception. Prominent members of the neo-con community have declared that the Egyptian people should acknowledge a debt of gratitude owed to … George W. Bush.
Yes, it seems that Egyptians were only fulfilling the wise prophecy made by that visionary more than seven years earlier. Of course, these same neo-cons previously operated as though poverty, corruption and tyranny for 80 million people was a small price to pay for their tormentor’s loyalty to Western “values.” Now they claim it is their progressive philosophy that deserves credit. Take Elliott Abrams, whose avoidance of a well-deserved lengthy prison sentence would have been far more tolerable had he not remained a high-profile commentator and Bush Administration official. Here’s what Abrams had to say during the demonstrations:
In November 2003, President George W. Bush laid out this question: “Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom and never even to have a choice in the matter?” The massive and violent demonstrations underway in Egypt, the smaller ones in Jordan and Yemen, and the recent revolt in Tunisia that inspired those events, have affirmed that the answer is no and are exploding, once and for all, the myth of Arab exceptionalism. Arab nations, too, yearn to throw off the secret police, to read a newspaper that the Ministry of Information has not censored and to vote in free elections.
Here’s what Abrams doesn’t say. Bush delivered this speech in November, 2003, about eight months after the US-led invasion of Iraq by the coalition of the bullied and bought. It already was quite clear that the WMD’s we had been promised were not going to surface. Having lost their casus belli, Bush & co. were scrambling for a replacement, and the cause of Arab democracy was tried on for size: “Sure, we thought Saddam had WMD’s, but even if we were honestly mistaken, we toppled an evil dictator who was oppressing 25 million people.” Those who opposed the war were excoriated for their love of Saddam and insensitivity to freedom for the peoples of the Middle East. The anti-war crowd was portrayed as quasi-racists who thought Arabs were not equipped to function under democracy, when their real position was that the U.S. could not successfully impose “democracy” by bombing, invasion and occupation. Bush faced a small dilemma in extolling the virtues of Arab democracy. He did not want to offend the tyrannical Arab regimes that were recipients of lavish financial and/or diplomatic support from the U.S., including Egypt and the Bush family favorite, Saudi Arabia. Problem solved! With a wink and a nod to his Arab allies, Bush signaled that he was not really serious about spreading the dangerous notion of democracy throughout the region. According to the Washington Post:
[Bush]praised the governments of Egypt, which said “should show the way toward democracy in the Middle East,” and Saudi Arabia, which he said is “taking first steps toward reform, including a plan for gradual introduction of elections.”
Yes, that is the same article discussing the same speech that was linked by Abrams as support for his thesis of Bush as visionary prophet. Abrams actually exalted his former employer as a guiding light of Egyptian democracy based upon a speech in which Bush praised Egypt’s dictatorship as a role model.
Bush gets credit for mouthing insufferably paternalistic platitudes that were a transparent pretext for waging aggressive war that would take at least hundreds of thousands of lives and displace millions more. His administration continued to bribe the Mubarak regime with over a billion dollars a year to toe the US line, with full awareness that the tyrant was lining his pockets while keeping Egyptians in misery. Anyone familiar with Abrams could not be surprised at his dishonesty, but it helps to be reminded of the depths of depravity to which such “respected” commentators sink on a regular basis.
Another entry in the rogues’ gallery of odious neocon punditry is this gem from Charles Krauthammer. The celebrated Mr. K sees Bush and Blair as members of the vanguard that refused to accept the “leftist” notion of Arab preference for dictatorship over liberty:
Today, everyone and his cousin supports the ‘freedom agenda.’ Of course, yesterday it was just George W. Bush, Tony Blair and a band of neocons with unusual hypnotic powers who dared challenge the received wisdom of Arab exceptionalism — the notion that Arabs, as opposed to East Asians, Latin Americans, Europeans and Africans, were uniquely allergic to democracy. Indeed, the left spent the better part of the Bush years excoriating the freedom agenda as either fantasy or yet another sordid example of U.S. imperialism. Now it seems everyone, even the left, is enthusiastic for Arab democracy.
For reasons far too lengthy to discuss here, Krauthammer’s hypocrisy is at least as brazen and contemptible as Abrams’s. It is more noteworthy that Messrs. K and A both employ the same phrase — “Arab exceptionalism” – that has now been proven wrong. A quick google check indicates that it may have been coined in these very articles. Obviously, it bears a superficial resemblance to American and Israeli exceptionalism, with one critical difference. Those exceptionalisms are positive, in the sense that the U.S. and Israel are endowed by their Creator with unique authority to interfere in the affairs of other countries, covertly if possibly but with overwhelming militarily force if deemed necessary; to violate international and even domestic law at whim; and to assert a right of “self-defense” that would be considered outrageous aggression if asserted by an “unexceptional” nation.
By contrast, the now discredited Arab exceptionalism, as described by Krauthammer and Abrams, is the quasi-racist assumption (made by “the left”) that Arabs aren’t ready to enjoy the freedom and enlightenment we take for granted. This neo-con rejection of Arab exceptionalism, however belated and insincere, is good news and has broad implications. In the one-state, two-state debate, it is this very notion of Arab exceptionalism that has been trumpeted in response to those who favor a single democratic state of equal citizens. The argument is that while Jews can survive and even prosper as a tiny minority in a country like the US or the UK, how dare anyone suggest that they subject themselves to the will of the majority when they constitute fully 50% of the population, where the other half is, gasp, unwashed masses of Arabs? The Jews would instantly be victimized by the Arab temperament, which includes not only anti-democratic tendencies but a sworn commitment to impose Sharia law on all heretics upon pain of death. (How the Arab Christians have survived all this time remains a mystery.) Jews require sovereignty and self-rule, even if that means rule over others God placed on Jewish land as a bizarre practical joke. Hasbarists love to note that Jewish presence in Palestine has been continuous for thousands of years, as if that somehow justifies the current regime of Jewish dominance. In fact, the continuous Jewish presence is evidence of acceptance of that presence by the majority population, at least until the complications resulting from the 20th century concept of Jewish sovereignty requiring ethnic cleansing. Even such enlightened countries as the US and UK might get a bit testy if their Jewish populations demanded a swath of territory designated for Jewish rule. Now, apparently, Krauthammer and Abrams have unwittingly joined the growing one-state bandwagon. By throwing overboard the negative concept of Arab exceptionalism, they have removed any objection to the type of one person/one vote system with guarantees of equality for all that we in the “West” take for granted. Whaddya know, Arabs are just like us after all. The logical extension of his newfound faith in universality is that Jews could continue to live and even thrive as equals in an Israel/Palestine and need not insist upon domination and control over the non-Jewish population.
Could this be the beginning of a neo-con wave of conversion to the growing chorus of one-staters? Surely not, but it is one more indication that the miraculous Egyptian revolt is bringing about a sea change in the way the West views all Arabs. Even the neocons are forced to acknoweldge, albeit for cynical reasons, that long-nurtured notions of Arab backwardness are no longer acceptable.
