Islamic Political Parties Deserve Western Support, says Egyptian Scholar
August 29, 2006, The Washington Post

Egyptian scholar Saad Ibrahim addressed the unanticipated, and potentially unwanted, outcomes of democratic elections in the Middle East in his August 23 op/ed piece in the The Washington Post. He says that the recent elections in the region have resulted in wins for mainstream Islamic parties, who support democracy but are not the secular powers that the U.S. and Israel want influencing the region; however, the democratically-elected parties have public support and should be accepted by Western powers.

Ibrahim lists the recent strides made in democratic elections in the Middle East and points to 2005, a year which saw the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, a multi-candidate presidential election in Egypt, and municipal elections in Saudi Arabia, as evidence that wide-spread democratization may be coming to the Middle East. However, he says that Western reception for some of these newly-elected parties has been cold: “Hamas mobilized candidates and popular campaigns to win a plurality in Palestinian legislative elections and form a new government. Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt achieved similar electoral successes. And with these developments, a sudden chill fell over Washington and other Western capitals.”

Ibrahim believes that President Bush and Secretary of State Rice have pressed for democracy in the Middle East but claims that the recent wave of non-secular party successes was not what they had in mind, so they began to embrace non-democratic allies in the region. “Even the tepid pressure on autocratic allies of the United States to democratize in 2005 had all but disappeared by 2006,” Ibrahim says. “In fact, tottering Arab autocrats felt they had a new lease on life with the West conveniently cowed by an emerging Islamist political force.”

“None of the current heads of Arab states made the list of the 10 most popular public figures,” Ibrahim writes, citing a recent public opinion poll in Egypt. He argues that “…mainstream Islamists with broad support… are the most likely actors in building a new Middle East.”  In fact, he says, “They are already doing so through the Justice and Development Party in Turkey, the similarly named PJD in Morocco, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in Palestine and yes, Hezbollah in Lebanon.”

Ibrahim claims that these groups are not antithetical to democracy, as they have both electoral and public support, and must be accepted by the West.