Trust is the Middle East’s big problem

A report on the upcoming challenges for the Arab World—titled “Real Security: The Interdependence of Governance and Stability in the Arab World”—was presented at Brookings Monday. The report was launched by the Atlantic Council and Brookings to explore how the US can best help stabilize the Middle East in coming years. The report was written by Tamara Cofman, Senior Fellow and Director for the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings, and commissioned by the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Strategy Task Force, which is co-chaired by former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright and former National Security advisor, Stephen Hadley. All three convened for a panel yesterday, joined by Amr Hamzawy, a Senior Associate for the Middle East and Democracy & Rule of Law Programs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Hadley moderated the panel.

Albright believes that the region is destined for good governance. Many others believe that a country needs to be secure before it can start pursuing practices of good governance, but Albright believes that they must occur at the same time in order to be sustainable. “People want to vote and eat,” she said.

Cofman believes that the civil wars and unrest throughout the region are a symptom of a general breakdown of social order in these countries. With the advent of easily accessible technology and constant global communication, authoritarian ideology began to break down in 2011. People were able to see what they did not have by communicating with others around the world and began to hold their leaders accountable for failing to fulfill their social contract. When people arose in protest, the authoritarian governments responded by cracking down. This did not stop the protests but instead led to the rise of independent militias who could provide security for the people against government aggression.

Trust between the government and the governed needs to be rebuilt in these countries if they want to see peace, Cofman said. Simply building more democratic institutions won’t cut it, since the problem lies with who populates those institutions. Creating more borders will not solve the problem either, as any new borders will be fought over. Dialogue is the only way forward and social trust needs to be built from the bottom up.

Hamzawy complimented Cofman on her report, but suggested that perhaps the Middle East is heading to a revival of autocracy rather than a new democratic order. To reverse this trend, he suggests focusing on generating social capital and reinvigorating civil society, rather than on constitutional reforms and institution building. There also needs to be a new focus on combating corruption in the judicial system and among law enforcement, as people need to feel as though they can trust the state to protect them. Additionally, the US needs to look closely at which countries are being run by the military and which are being run by the people since countries that are run by the military are very difficult to reform.

When asked which countries she sees as fragile, Cofman said she is keeping a close eye on Algeria and the Palestinian Authority. Both governments have aging leaders and no clear plans for succession. In an uncertain environment, people are more likely to rise up in protest. Albright added that Jordan may also be an issue in the future, as the monarchy there is losing trust with the people and not delivering on promises. She summarized saying that in the Middle East, “people are talking to the government on 21^st century technology, but the government only listens on 20^th century technology and ia responding to problems with 19^th century technology.”

Hamzawy pointed out that while supporters of autocracies claim that they provide better national security than democracies, that security is not sustainable. Autocracies may provide better security against external threats, but by breaking trust with their citizenry, they are causing internal insecurity.

During the Q&A session, the German Ambassador to the US asked the panel whether the United States and its allies are doing enough to promote human rights in the region. Albright responded that more can certainly be done, though it cannot be accomplished solely by external actors. People living in the region need to make a commitment to preserving human rights and cannot simply rely on the West to guarantee these rights.