The battle of Algiers

Even as the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Gulf War combined to strike a decisive blow to the traditional source of postwar Arab radicalism - the Nasser-style thugs mouthing "socialist" or pan-Arab slogans - the spread of Islamic fundamentalism has seemed to accelerate. No longer confined to Shiite Iran, the Islamic trend has shown strength in Jordan, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza, in Tunisia, and now in Algiers, where the army intervened last month to forestall an election victory by the Islamic Salvation Front. The United States cannot wholly escape responsibility for these upheavals. It was at our urging that many moderate Arab regimes adopted more democratic forms, with these perverse results. In some cases, they moved toward democratization in order to win legitimacy for the austere economic reforms pressed on them by the U.S., the IMF, and the World Bank.

The Islamic parties make little secret of their dim view of these economic reforms - and indeed of democracy. If they were to gain full power, even by democratic means, their programs would be not constitutionalism but theocratic authoritariasnism. One man, one vote, once. Yet, the West's response is, as so Often, intellectually confused. There is a natural reaction that a military takeover is objectionable (or that it is unlikely to succeed). Further, many of our Middle East experts argue that if we truly adhere to our democratic principles we have no right to complain of the electoral result. no matter how anti-American or anti-Western (or anti-democratic) the winners turn out to be. Others continue to urge democratic elections on our Arab friends (including in the Gulf) lest their legitimacy be under a cloud.

We are not convinced by these propositions. Sometimes an Islamic fundamentalist regime will pose a real threat to Western interest; sometimes not; most times there will be nothing that the U.S. could do in either even. But we should feel no obligation to promote the cause of those whose hatred of Western values is their paramount principle. We should ease up on forcing Western electoral forms on societies that have their own dynamics, beyond our ken. We should accept that moderate Arab governments which govern by their own social contract in traditional ways may be as legitimate as any other, and that destabilizing them in the name of democracy will do no one any good if it gives an opening to more regressive forces. When determining our attitude to the rise and fall of political forces in other countries, we should consult our interest before recommending our values.