The Center for the Study of Islam & Democracy has released an open letter urging President Obama to promote democracy and defend human rights in the Middle East. So far, the letter has received over 400 signatures from leading American, Arab, and Muslim scholars, experts, and activists:
In order to rebuild relations of mutual respect, it is critical that the United States be on the right side of history regarding the human, civil, and political rights of the peoples of the Middle East. There is no doubt that the people of the Middle East long for greater freedom and democracy; they have proven themselves willing to fight for it. What they need from your administration is a commitment to encourage political reform not through wars, threats, or imposition, but through peaceful policies that reward governments that take active and measurable steps towards genuine democratic reforms. Moreover, the US should not hesitate to speak out in condemnation when opposition activists are unjustly imprisoned in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, or elsewhere. When necessary, the United States should use its considerable economic and diplomatic leverage to put pressure on its allies in the region when they fail to meet basic standards of human rights.
We recognize that taking these steps will present both difficulties and dilemmas. Accordingly, bold action is needed today more than ever. For too long, American policy in the Middle East has been paralyzed by fear of Islamist parties coming to power. Some of these fears are both legitimate and understandable; many Islamists advocate illiberal policies. They need to do more to demonstrate their commitment to the rights of women and religious minorities, and their willingness to tolerate dissent. However, most mainstream Islamist groups in the region are nonviolent and respect the democratic process.
To read the full letter or sign on as a supporter, visit CSID.
If the Obama administration is to be on the ‘right side of history’ with regard to the Middle East, it needs to rethink its approach to the relationship between nuclear issues and human rights in the region. On the one hand, Obama has attempted to foster an atmosphere of mutual respect with Iran, though of course the rhetoric of extended hands and unclenched fists is ironic at best and shamelessly hypocritical at worst (Gil Anidjar’s piece on this website attacks this rhetoric rather nicely). But even if we do what we are asked to do and ‘believe’ this administration’s rhetoric with regard to Iranian nuclear policy, there is a political distinction currently being made between the U.A.E.’s candid and ‘peaceful’ pursuit of civil nuclear technology and Iran’s secretive and bellicose pursuit of nuclear arms, a distinction that threatens to undermine any chance of the US being on the right side of Middle Eastern history more generally, not just in regard to nuclear technology acquisition. In his recent speech in Prague, Obama’s language of mutual endeavor towards the elimination of nuclear weapons, the path towards our ‘ultimate survival,’ was inextricably tied to the injunction aimed at Iran to take its ‘rightful place in the community of nations.’ This is typical of Obama’s attempt to promote internationally the idea of the common good—a globalizing extended hand (or conventional warfare fist?) of US civil religion.
The Bush administration was delighted to find in the U.A.E. a neat Dr. Jekyll for the Iranian Mr. Hyde. In the rampant oversimplification of Middle Eastern national needs, abilities and desires, the U.A.E. provided the US with the classic hold over Iran—why can’t you just be like your brother? Currently, the Obama team seems more than happy to continue this analogy. Over the next two weeks, US firms are bidding for multi-billion dollar contracts to lead the new nuclear program in Abu Dhabi. The U.A.E. has been, and continues to be roundly applauded throughout the west for its right and proper decision to buy right and proper nuclear fuel on the international market and bypass altogether the very possibility of producing weapons-grade fissile materials. Thus the argument goes: ‘Great, they won’t be getting up to any funny business, and hey, we can sell them the nuclear stuff and buy their oil. Everyone’s a winner!’
The problem, of course, lies in the message this sends out to all those who would rather the U.A.E. didn’t continue to operate as a slave-holding society. It is a disastrous effect of a couple of hundred years of meddling in Middle Eastern politics and nation-building that we still have this division of ‘allies’ and ‘enemies’ in the region, where as long as an ally is building seven star hotels and allowing expats the odd tax break we let them get away with massive human rights abuses. It is a tragic commonplace in the media now that an article which laments the fact that Indian workers are forced to come to Dubai and earn 50 cents an hour on construction sites in 120 degree heat exists side by side with advertisements urging us to join the rich and famous and go spend all our money there. If the Obama administration is serious about having a beneficial impact on nuclear production in the Middle East, it needs to be much more cautious about the distinctions made between ‘peaceful’ and ‘aggressive’ approaches to nuclear technology. Indeed, if Obama is serious about the idea of the common good, and if he is serious about using the question of nuclear technology as a reinforcement of that idea of the common good, then he must think much more carefully about fostering US-UAE trade agreements that will prop up the appalling trade in exploitative labor in the UAE. If Mr Obama wants to extend a hand to the Iranian government, he must also extend a hand to the construction workers in the UAE.