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Published in Cairo by
AL-AHRAM established in 1875
29 April - 5 May
2004 - Issue No. 688 (Interview)
 Francis Fukuyama, of "End of History" renown, speaks to Ezzat Ibrahim,
in Washington, of his views on the Bush administration's Middle East
policy and the American tendency to confuse universalism with
self-interest
You support the "preventive war" doctrine
as a way to defend US national interests, but at the same time you believe
ideological hostility to multilateralism within the US is a problem. Is
there an inconsistency here?
It is impossible to rule out the
occasional need for preventive action. But I think it was a big mistake
for the United States not to establish the parameters of the doctrine,
giving the rest of the world the impression that it was going to be,
somehow, a routine element of American foreign policy.
It is something that really should be done
very, very carefully, and only under very restricted circumstances. It is
really something I am in favour of. It was a mistake in Iraq, but it is
too late now. We have to try to make things work, but I would prefer a
different policy.
The American administration has mixed its
rhyme and reason at will. Officials used the scare of "weapons of mass
destruction" as a springboard, turning later to concerns about democracy
and human rights. How do you assess such an unstable policy?
I criticised the Bush administration for
promoting the preventive war doctrine while calling for democracy and
confronting the "axis of evil". I think you cannot bring about democracy
through the use of military force.
True, there is a time when power is an
important element. But in this case -- Iraq -- it was wrongly applied.
Anger on 'the Arab street' against the US
Middle East policy has reached unprecedented levels, especially following
Sharon's visit to the White House earlier this month. Should that policy
be altered to reflect the "moral responsibility" of being the world's sole
superpower in the midst of such a protracted conflict?
The discussion of anger in the Middle East
has gotten very confusing because I think there are many different sources
of anger against the United States.
When we talk about individuals like Osama
Bin Laden, there is a deeper hostility towards Western values and
institutions, not just Americans. But I think when you look at the reasons
why there is such negative public opinion -- among ordinary Jordanians,
Egyptians and so on -- it is right that hostility is very much centred on
the way we have dealt with the whole Palestinian issue.
It is not an anger against the United
States as a society, or against American institutions, or the West more
generally. It is over American foreign policy.
In your new book, Nation Building:
Governance and World Order in the 21st Century, you argue that bad
governance or not enough government is the reason why Third World
countries outside East Asia are unable to develop. Does this mean you want
competent governments in the Middle East before full democracies?
The two are so much related. Normally, you
cannot have good governance without democracy. Singapore is an example
that everybody points to -- a very efficient bureaucracy, government by
technocrats, without democracy so far. That is one possible model, but in
practice very few countries are able to achieve Singapore's level of good
governance.
And I think that democracy is a component
of good governance because in many cases it is really impossible to have a
government that is responsible to the needs of the people it is trying to
serve without participation, feedback and the ability to hold officials
accountable. So, I think in some level you cannot separate the two.
To progress in the Middle East towards
more accountable governments is probably going to take a while because
authoritarian governments are very deeply embedded in many Middle Eastern
countries. It might take one or two generations to recognise that kind of
change.
In the aftermath of Iraq war, it seems
many Americans no longer believe in "the universalism of American values
and institutions". You once said that such a belief led Americans often to
confuse narrow national interests with those of the world community. Can
you explain?
Concerning values and institutions that
are universal, I think the US is one example of a broader universal
pattern. Europeans have another version, the Japanese and the Koreans
another still, and so on.
America is just one example of a broader
pattern of democratic government. The reason, in the 20th century, that
the American model prevailed is that it corresponded to the aspirations of
a lot of people all over the world. I would not say that the American
version is necessarily the right one.
Truly, the Americans tend to make a
mistake, which is to confuse there own narrow self-interests with the
promotion of broader universal values. I think that part of American
exceptionalism is that we tend not to see that our narrower self-
interests get mixed up with the broader universalism.
Many of your ideas are by and large
different from the ideas of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC).
As a founding member of PNAC, what do you see in common between you and
the hard-liners of the American conservative movement? And do you consider
yourself a "Neo-con"?
Well, I have been very close to people in
the Project, and most people would consider me part of that movement, but
I think that I am really different from them.
For example, the whole approach to Iraq,
the whole relation to democracy and dealing with the Palestinian issue is
a kind of severance, because many of them feel that there is really no way
to deal with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict right now.
And in some sense, I am afraid they are
using democracy as a kind of excuse for not dealing with it. They argue
that you cannot have a settlement with the Palestinians until you have
genuine democracy within the Palestinian Authority, and you have not
really dealt with the broader Middle East problems until you have
democracy.
That is such a long-term project, and in a
way it is not an excuse for not doing anything. I think, in fact, we have
all along needed to put a greater effort to pull the Palestinian issue
ahead of that.
And if you have to wait until you have
democracy, we will wait forever. It is too urgent, really, to have that
kind of sequencing.
Did you work with other scholars or give
advice to the US administration on the Greater Middle East Initiative?
Not directly with Bush's administration. I
am on the board of The National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Indeed, I
am the board member who is responsible for, and oversees, the Middle East
programmes.
The Endowment is trying to maintain
independence from the Bush administration. The administration obviously
wants to use them. It increased NED funding a great deal for all the
Middle East programmes during the last year. The Endowment's programmes
existed before the Greater Middle East Initiative, and I think they are
going to strive to stay independent.
What is your opinion on the Initiative
itself?
Well, I think the problem is the US has
very low credibility across the Arab world in general, for a couple of
reasons. First, the way we treat the Palestinian issue. Second, working
with non-democratic regimes throughout the Arab world.
Therefore, when the United States talks
about democracy, people cannot listen. And I think unless we solve the
credibility problem in a more fundamental way, it is going to be hard to
make more progress. I do think that simply raising the issue -- even if it
seems hypocritical and not sincere -- it is still a good thing.
The cancelling of the last Arab summit in
Tunisia has now set off a lot of political ferments and discussions that
might be helpful. I do think that it is difficult for us to be in a
position of pushing strongly the democracy agenda until we ourselves
figure out how we are going to reconcile our narrow national interests
with this larger democracy promotion initiative.
In general, since it is going to be a slow
and long-term process, it is still important. The American president has
said that we regard democracy in this part of the world as important,
because while we have promoted democracy in other regions, the Middle East
is an exception until now. It is going to take a long time not only to
change the Middle East, but also to change American foreign policy.
You hold a PhD in Soviet foreign policy
towards the Middle East, and in 1981-82 were a member of the US delegation
to Egyptian-Israeli talks on Palestinian autonomy. From the vantage of
experience, how do you read recent developments between Israel and the
Palestinians?
In my opinion, under the Clinton
administration Palestinians got a deal that actually surprised me from my
earlier experience in working on the Arab-Israeli conflict. I think the
deal they were presented with in Taba was about as good as anyone can
expect. It would be a Palestinian state and 95 per cent of what they lost
in 1967, plus a little bit of pre-1967, within the Green Line.
The deal really amazed me because Israel
was not willing to give up that much. The Palestinians did not get the
right of return but the Israelis were apparently ready to negotiate
compensations and other ways to settle that issue. It was a tremendous
mistake for the Palestinian leadership to walk away from that. Part of the
reason that we have a regression and the rise of Sharon is that the
falling apart of that deal convinced many Israelis that there is no
Palestinian interlocutor willing to negotiate seriously with them. The
whole thing started to escalate after the Temple Mount incident.
Now, people on both sides are digging into
much more hard-line positions. I continue to believe that there is a
possible settlement out there, and that settlement will not be different
from Taba -- the settlement that was reached at the end of Clinton
administration. Unfortunately, because of the depth of hatred on both
sides it is going to be Taba minus all the economic interdependence
envisioned during the Oslo process. Unfortunately, I think this is just
the reality, but I continue to think that that is the only conceivable
solution for the area.
The Palestinians had extremely poor
leadership; not seeing that it is better to accept a realistic settlement.
Right now, I do not think the unilateral policy is a particularly good one
because, as far as I see, Sharon will give back the whole of Gaza but he
is not going to give back as much as Barak was giving back in 2000. I have
not seen the precise lines of Sharon's proposal for withdrawal but it is
not nearly as good a deal.
On the Israeli side, it is not a good deal
either because most of the Israelis are convinced that the majority of the
Palestinians agree that whatever the final settlement is, it is not going
to stop suicide bombing and violence. The only way to get there is to
create a real Palestinian state. A state that will be able to negotiate
and will be able to enforce whatever final deal is made.
Also, international enforcement, on the
security side, might be desirable. The only sense in which the Sharon plan
steps forward is that it does represent a greater realism on the part of
the Israeli right; that they simply cannot have the Greater Israel. I just
do not think that holding on to Hebron, or specific settlements in the
West Bank, is workable when they reach final arrangements.
So the far right is the key mover behind
Sharon's recent unilateral actions?
I think they [the Israeli government]
killed Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Rantisi to satisfy the extreme right, and
Sharon wanted to prove that it is not a "retreat" when he offers a pullout
from Gaza.
In that sense, there is going to be a
showdown from the far right also over the West Bank, but I think Sharon
will win. It is a stupid idea to talk about keeping or seizing parts of
the West Bank, and the Israeli right will come to realise this fact.
You insist that modernisation, as a
universal process, sooner or later drags all societies in its wake, and
that the modernisation of Islam will be a major factor in engaging Arab
nations in a global society. Do you still believe in the possibility of
avoiding a schism among the world's civilisations?
First, reconciliation between religion and
politics in the Middle East should take place. And when I talk about such
reconciliation -- or secular politics -- it does not mean "anti- clerical"
politics, or a politics of suppressing religion.
Actually, the Turks are working their way,
now, towards a kind of solution. Right now, the biggest party in Turkey is
an Islamic one. They take religion seriously and do not want it to
disappear. They want to retain Turkey's identity as a Muslim society but
they are fully reconciled, as far as I can tell, to acting within the
framework of democratic politics.
I would think that is, actually, a model
for other Muslim countries: integration with the outer world -- democracy
-- but also in keeping with Muslim identity.
I just came back from a conference on
Islam and modernisation where I argued that there is certainly ground
within the Muslim tradition itself to reconcile that tradition with the
most fundamental aspects of modern life.
You have said that the Middle East is
waiting for its Martin Luther. Can you explain?
In the Arab and Muslim worlds liberal
voices exist but politically they are not listened to. Actually, I think
the important struggle is the political struggle.
For instance, if you look at someone like
Abdolkarim Soroush, the theorist from Iran, who wants to reconcile Islam
and modernity. Probably, there is no single "Luther" but there are voices
like that in the Islamic world. Those reformers were waiting for the right
time, but they are drowned out by Osama Bin Laden-types.
Anti-Americanism and fundamentalism are
spreading, especially after the war in Iraq. Do you still believe that the
promise of an "end of History" will prevail over the horror of a "clash of
civilisations"?
Not in the Middle East. There is going to
be a lot of violence and conflict. The idea of the "end of History" argues
that real, legitimate democracy is the only form of governance that people
really believe in.
A lot of turmoil in the Middle East is the
result of a lack of legitimate democracy, and I believe people of the
region really want it.
What are your expectations for the next US
presidential elections?
I think George W Bush could lose the
November elections because he is going to be faced with a lot of
disadvantages.
For example, if Iraq continues to be a big
mess by the time of the elections it could cost him the White House.
Do you trust John Kerry?
Not particularly. I do not know for whom I
am going to vote this time around.
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