A conservative approach toward the Middle East today should not be a choice between the two extremes of isolationism or global policing.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — With the election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States, we need no reminding that he inherits a disastrous situation in the Middle East where active conflicts in countries ranging from Yemen to Syria to Iraq offer few good policy options to bring them to a successful resolution. In light of these many challenges, what should a conservative approach to the Middle East look like in the Trump era?

Under President George W. Bush the conservative approach become synonymous with what is often described as the neoconservative one: that the United States can and should actively promote the spread of democracy, using force when necessary. Following President Obama’s ascension to the presidency, Republicans split into competing camps.

On one side were those who continued to favor the Bush posture and a strong U.S. position backing the Arab Spring protests, thus advocating for U.S. involvement in overthrowing the governments of countries like Libya and Syria. On the other side were those who advocated a much smaller U.S. presence in the Arab world, contending that America’s foreign policy was at the heart of the ills of the region.

A conservative approach toward the Middle East today should not be a choice between these two extremes: removing ourselves entirely from events in the region, or involving ourselves in every conflict regardless of circumstances so as to not appear “weak.”

Promoting Democracy

The Middle East today presents a frustrating dilemma: the lack of democracy, or more precisely the lack of responsive government that addresses its citizens’ needs, has led to widespread discontent with the political systems in place. At the same time, the violent overthrow of political regimes in a number of countries, often in direct response to that discontent, has led to a power vacuum fueling chaos, sectarianism, Islamic extremism, and humanitarian catastrophe.

Much of the debate about how to address these issues revolves around the concept of democracy. Many in the realist and libertarian camps of the Right have come to view the spread of democracy in the Middle East with skepticism, seeing efforts to promote democracy such as the Iraq War and the uprising to overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Syria as primary causes in the chaos currently enveloping the region. The neoconservative wing of the Right, on the other hand, has maintained that promoting democratic movements serves our interest in the long term, and that Obama’s abandonment of these initiatives as contributing to the dismal situation in the region.

Deep division on the right side of the foreign policy spectrum into competing camps is not new, and defined the transitions within the Republican Party in the 1970s and 1980s. While there is not space here to revisit the debates between those favoring and opposing détente with the Soviet Union then, we Republicans who grew up after the end of the Cold War can look back and see clearly that the Reagan position, not the Kissinger one, was right, and history has shown that quite clearly. This foreign policy drew clear moral lines between Western democracy and the Evil Empire, drew many Democrats over to the Right, at least for a decade, and more importantly freed millions of people from the inhumane tyranny of communism.

However, while some would draw a direct line between the firm position Reagan took against the Soviet Union and, say, intervening in the Syria conflict in an attempt to promote democracy as a solution to the region’s problems, it is important to remember that hardline anti-Communists did not always assume the spread of democracy would be in the United States’ interests. In the late 1950s William F. Buckley, Jr., criticized the left in his book “Up from Liberalism” for mistaking democracy for good governance. Democracy is the means to an end, he argued, not the end in itself.

Subsequently, Jeane Kirkpatrick wrote in her seminal essay “Dictatorships and Double Standards” about the dangers of pushing pro-American dictators to democratize too quickly. Her article has since been read mistakenly as being anti-democracy, but her point was not that a move toward democracy is an unworthy goal. Instead, Kirkpatrick argued that you cannot push a country to hold elections when the conditions in that country will not likely lead to a better political regime.

This is not a commentary on “cultural readiness” for democracy and the like, but rather a question of who specifically is organized enough in the country to benefit from an election. Kirkpatrick warned against pushing for elections in countries where the only organized opposition was Marxist, as they would invariably benefit, and would not be more likely to push for inclusive governance once in power. Instead, to take hold democracy needs the right conditions, and Kirkpatrick astutely predicted that rightwing dictatorships like Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and South Korea would eventually democratize, whereas leftwing dictatorships like North Korea and Cuba would be less likely to transition to democracy.

The neoconservative, and conservative, right slowly transitioned, during the 1980s, from skepticism of democracy to seeing democracy promotion as an effective tool of U.S. foreign policy. James Mann aptly chronicles this transition in his book “The Rise of the Vulcans,” and attributes the success of forcing Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos from power in 1986, despite being a U.S. ally, as a turning point in the Republican approach to the issue.

So when Francis Fukuyama wrote “The End of History?” in 1989 (later expanded into a book), he had a more sympathetic audience to his argument that mankind had finally chosen liberal democracy as the only credible form of government.

President George W. Bush’s “freedom agenda” was the logical continuation of this worldview, and his support of democrats throughout the Middle East and beyond testified of his rejection of the notion that some peoples are simply not ready for democracy. Unfortunately, however, the Iraq War was a misguided attempt to impose this agenda by force, and led to many opponents of the war to abandon the cause of democracy altogether.

We would do well, however, to return to Kirkpatrick’s notion that the conditions for democracy must be right before we push for regime change in countries run by dictators. The conundrum in the Middle East today is that the countries with the most brutal dictators are the least likely to successfully transition to democracy, or so the experience of the last several years suggests. The most brutal of dictatorships, where no opposition or dissent is allowed, generally do not have a viable political alternative at hand to take over the country.

This presents a real moral dilemma, as it is difficult to accept that countries like Syria are not able to immediately transition to democracy, as we watch the Assad regime’s brutality towards its own people which has led him to destroy entire cities rather than give up power. It’s easy to feel that something must be done to help.

Following Kirkpatrick’s logic, it should be no surprise that the Muslim Brotherhood took power in post-revolution elections in Egypt. Tunisia, where the Arab Spring started, is often held up as the success story of that movement, but Tunisia had a lot shorter path to travel from its situation in late 2010 to some semblance of a democracy where power is transferred peacefully and regularly.

Applying This Approach to Syria

Many on the hawkish right have criticized President Obama’s handling of the Syria conflict, specifically arguing he should have intervened early in the conflict on behalf of the opposition Free Syrian Army. This would have, the argument goes, allowed them to overthrow the Assad regime and prevent the rise of extremists amongst the opposition by not allowing for the vacuum that has since formed in large parts of the country.

But can we reasonably expect that the Syrian regime could have been overthrown and subsequently replaced with a more liberal regime that would respect religious minorities and allow for political dissent? More relevantly, would support for the opposition at this time improve the situation?

When the Syrian uprising began in March 2011, it was characterized by peaceful protests against a dictatorial regime, which responded with deadly force against its own people. In the early days of the protests there was cross-sectarian support for the calls for democracy, freedom, and human rights. The regime operated—and continues to operate—like a mafia, favoring party members over normal citizens and using sectarian tension to solidify support among minorities and instill general fear over sectarian violence in the event of its downfall.

The protests and subsequent uprising against the regime is a testament to the level of dissatisfaction in the country prior to 2011, even if that dissatisfaction was not readily apparent to the wide-eyed Western tourist wandering the country’s historical sites (myself included) nor the country’s elite, many of whom still have not understood the underlying discontent that led to the uprising.

Syria’s Sectarian Politics

The Assad regime, under both father and son, has cleverly used sectarian divides to gain support. However, while the regime has exploited and at times exacerbated sectarian divisions in the country, it did not invent them.

Syria is a significantly diverse country, with the Sunni Arab majority living alongside Christians (ethnically Arab, Assyrian, and Armenian), Islamic offshoots like Alawites, Ismailis, and Druze (all ethnically Arab), and ethnic minorities such as Turkmen and Kurds, among others. Fear of a dominant Sunni majority in Syria has often led religious minority communities (Christian, Druze, Ismaili, and, most relevantly Alawite) and many Sunnis into Arab nationalism and its various related theories, emphasizing Arab national solidarity over sectarian division. However, adopting a state ideology of Arab nationalism, as Syria did, was essentially a recognition of the potentiality for sectarian tension. There would be no need to emphasize Arab unity over sectarian solidarity if the masses already largely placed their Arab identity over their sectarian one.

Syrian Protests and Armed Uprising

The peaceful protests that started in March 2011 initially garnered some support from minority communities, particularly among young people, though they were largely dominated by the Sunni Arab majority. After several months, as what became the Free Syrian Army began to take up arms to defend the protesters against the regime, the peaceful protest movement transformed into an armed insurgency against the state.

The opposition slowly shed minority support, and over the course of five years has transformed from a democratic movement looking to overthrow a corrupt regime into a sectarian Sunni movement, albeit with groups ranging from moderate to extremist.

No doubt there are still many opposition members, including among minority communities, supporting secular democracy. However, most of these more secular democrats are operating outside of the country, either in Europe or in Syria’s neighbors. The reality on the ground is that extremist groups like Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra) and Ahrar al-Sham have by far the most power, and many U.S.-backed moderate groups coexist and actively cooperate with them.

Could Support for the Moderate Opposition Have Helped?

A common opinion expressed by hawkish Syria observers and politicians is that had we provided support to the moderate opposition early on, it would have strengthened their hand against both the regime and Islamic extremists. This would have prevented the rise of groups like ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra. It sounds nice, but would this have actually worked?

Many of the opposition, including some of those currently fighting the regime inside Syria today, truly believe in democracy more or less as we understand it. The argument that more support to them would have prevented the current chaos is predicated on a number of assumptions:

• that we can reasonably expect to overthrow the state structure of a modern Arab country by force and it result in something better than the status quo;
• that the sectarian nature of the conflict as it stands now is the result of Assad’s policies, and not an inherently sectarian streak amongst broad swathes of Syrian society;
• and that Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, ISIS, and other groups enjoy limited popular support in the country and the populace would have backed the moderate opposition if they had been seen as being stronger.

The first argument, that it is reasonably possible to overthrow the entire state and replace it with something more amenable, falls apart quickly because there is no precedent for it in the region. This has been tried and failed in Libya and Iraq.

Western proponents of intervention in Syria, particularly those on the Left, are quick to contrast their plan with Iraq, stating that the 2003 invasion was misguided because it was built on faulty intelligence and that we were not intervening in an existing conflict but rather starting a war from scratch. Libya, on the other hand, was done the ‘right’ way by these standards: led by a liberal president, supporting local armed groups instead of putting our own troops on the ground, and intervening in an existing war rather than starting one.

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Source: Approach The Middle East Between Interventionism And Isolationism