RABAT, Morocco: A democratic "Arab Spring," it seemed, had suddenly
blossomed. Lebanon's "Cedar Revolution" forced the withdrawal of Syrian
occupying troops. Millions of Iraqis defied insurgents to vote in historic
elections. Palestinians elected the moderate Mahmoud Abbas as president,
renewing hopes for peace talks with Israel. Egyptian strongman Hosni
Mubarak promised the first-ever contested presidential election.
Hardly two years later, however, the decades-long winter of Arab
discontent grinds on. Iraq teeters on the brink of civil war. The peace
process lies dead, with Israel and Hamas clashing in Gaza and Lebanon
still reeling from the summer war between Israel and Hezbollah. Mubarak
claims "reelection" with 88 percent of the vote, his main challenger back
in prison.
But a visit to this desert kingdom and its North African neighbors
reveals that the best hope for Arab reform may lie not in spectacular
events in the heart of the Middle East, but in small steps along the
region's periphery.
To be sure, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria won't become Jeffersonian
democracies anytime soon. In all three, autocratic regimes are enriched by
rampant corruption and rely on heavy-handed security services to stamp out
opposition.
Yet by virtue of their geography and history, the countries of the
Maghreb - at the crossroads of the Middle East, Africa and Europe -
continue to flirt with foreign, social and economic polices that could be
models for the region.
All three countries have, at times, reached out to Israel, and been
among Washington's closest Arab allies in the war on terrorism. "We have
chosen," we were repeatedly told by officials across the region. "We are
looking West."
Of course, many non-officials don't share the sentiment. Three years
after the Casablanca terrorist bombings, security officials disrupted the
latest plot here last month - Moroccans planning a "holy war" in the
kingdom. In Tunis, where Qaeda-linked terrorists bombed a synagogue in
2002, women are increasingly wearing head scarves in defiance of a
government ban. In Algiers, our delegation traveled in armored cars under
police escort.
Yet each nation, in its own way, is combating the underlying
frustrations that lead to fundamentalism. Algeria, with a press among the
freest in the region, held elections two years ago considered its fairest
yet. A national reconciliation plan is granting amnesty to Islamic
militants (if not justice for their victims) while privatization of
state-owned companies and increased social spending is designed to reduce
massive young unemployment.
In Tunis, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali sticks to the "Tunisia
model" - repressive politics alongside progressive economics. Claiming an
absurd 95- percent victory in the last election, Ben Ali's regime argues
that Tunisia's reputation as a leader in women's rights and the most open
economy in the Arab world - with a robust middle class, low poverty and
high literacy - show that you can give people dignity without democracy.
"If you own your own home, send your kids to school and have a good
life, you don't think about blowing yourself up at a café," said one
Tunisian minister.
Like Tunisia, Morocco seeks to stem radicalism through what officials
call "mosque management" - the government hires, trains and pays the
salaries of imams, even beaming government-scripted Friday prayers to
mosques by satellite.
Morocco's young King Mohammed VI has also embraced what could be called
"freedom management." Free elections gave new prominence to the Islamic
opposition, albeit in a rubber-stamp parliament. A new progressive family
law gives women unprecedented rights in marriage and divorce. A
royal-sanctioned truth commission, the first in the Arab world, exposed
the abuses of the king's despotic father and predecessor and sparked a
national debate on the prospects for Moroccan democracy.
How long can these regimes walk the tightrope, leaning West while their
people look increasingly to political Islam? Not surprisingly, our hosts
in each capital invoked Hezbollah and Hamas to argue that too much
democracy too fast is too dangerous.
But in a region where change comes slow, the tentative reforms in the
Maghreb may not be the most dramatic, but they may prove to be the most
lasting.
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Stanley A. Weiss is founder and chairman of Business Executives for
National Security, a nonpartisan organization based in Washington.
