[iwar] [fc:The."Green.Peril":.Creating.the.Islamic.Fundamentalist.Threat]

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The "Green Peril": Creating the Islamic Fundamentalist Threat

By Leon T. Hadar 

Leon T. Hadar, a former bureau chief for the Jerusalem Post,
is an adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute.

Executive Summary 

Now that the Cold War is becoming a memory, America's
foreign policy establishment has begun searching for new ene-
mies. Possible new villains include "instability" in Europe
--ranging from German resurgence to new Russian imperialism--
the "vanishing" ozone layer, nuclear proliferation, and
narcoterrorism. Topping the list of potential new global
bogeymen, however, are the Yellow Peril, the alleged threat
to American economic security emanating from East Asia, and
the so-called Green Peril (green is the color of Islam).
That peril is symbolized by the Middle Eastern Moslem funda-
mentalist--the "Fundie," to use a term coined by The Econo-
mist(1)--a Khomeini-like creature, armed with a radical ideolo-
gy, equipped with nuclear weapons, and intent on launching a
violent jihad against Western civilization.

George Will even suggested that the 1,000-year battle
between Christendom and Islam might be breaking out once more
when he asked, "Could it be that 20 years from now we will be
saying, not that they're at the gates of Vienna again, but
that, in fact, the birth of Mohammed is at least as important
as the birth of Christ, that Islamic vitality could be one of
the big stories of the next generations?"(2)

A New Cold War?

Indeed, "a new specter is haunting America, one that
some Americans consider more sinister than Marxism-Leninism,"
according to Douglas E. Streusand. "That specter is Islam."(3)
The rise of political Islam in North Africa, especially the
recent electoral strength of anti-liberal Islamic fundamen-
talist groups in Algeria; the birth of several independent
Moslem republics in Central Asia whose political orientation
is unclear; and the regional and international ties fostered
by Islamic governments in Iran and Sudan are all producing,
as Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland put it, an "urge
to identify Islam as an inherently anti-democratic force
that is America's new global enemy now that the Cold War is
over."(4)

"Islamic fundamentalism is an aggressive revolutionary
movement as militant and violent as the Bolshevik, Fascist,
and Nazi movements of the past," according to Amos Perlmut-
ter. It is "authoritarian, anti-democratic, anti-secular,"
and cannot be reconciled with the "Christian-secular uni-
verse" and its goal is the establishment of a "totalitarian
Islamic state" in the Middle East, he argued, suggesting
that the United States should make sure the movement is
"stifled at birth."(5)

The Islam vs. West paradigm, reflected in such observa-
tions, is beginning to infect Washington. That development
recalls the efforts by some of Washington's iron triangles
as well as by foreign players during the months leading up
to the 1990-91 Persian Gulf crisis. Their use of the media
succeeded in building up Saddam Hussein as the "most danger-
ous man in the world"(6) and as one of America's first new
post-Cold War bogeymen. Those efforts, including allega-
tions that Iraq had plans to dominate the Middle East,
helped to condition the American public and elites for the
U.S. intervention in the gulf.(7)

There is a major difference between the Saddam-the-
bogeyman caricature and the Green Peril. Notwithstanding
the Saddam-is-Hitler rhetoric, the Iraqi leader was per-
ceived as merely a dangerous "thug" who broke the rules of
the game and whom Washington could suppress by military
force. Saddam's Iraq was a threat to a regional balance of
power, not to the American way of life.

The alleged threat from Iran and militant Islam is
different. The struggle between that force and the West is
portrayed as a zero-sum game that can end only in the defeat
of one of the sides. The Iranian ayatollahs and their al-
lies--"revolutionary," "fanatic," and "suicidal" people that
they are--cannot be co-opted into balance-of-power arrange-
ments by rewards and are even seen as immune to military and
diplomatic threats. One can reach a tactical compromise
with them--such as the agreement with Lebanese Shi'ite
groups to release the American hostages--but on the strate
gic level the expectation is for a long, drawn-out battle.

Indeed, like the Red Menace of the Cold War era, the
Green Peril is perceived as a cancer spreading around the
globe, undermining the legitimacy of Western values and
political systems. The cosmic importance of the confronta-
tion would make it necessary for Washington to adopt a long-
term diplomatic and military strategy; to forge new and
solid alliances; to prepare the American people for a never-
ending struggle that will test their resolve; and to develop
new containment policies, new doctrines, and a new foreign
policy elite with its "wise men" and "experts."

There are dangerous signs that the process of creating
a monolithic threat out of isolated events and trends in the
Moslem world is already beginning. The Green Peril thesis
is now being used to explain diverse and unrelated events in
that region, with Tehran replacing Moscow as the center of
ideological subversion and military expansionism and Islam
substituting for the spiritual energy of communism.

Islam does seem to fit the bill as the ideal post-Cold
War villain. "It's big; it's scary; it's anti-Western; it
feeds on poverty and discontent," wrote David Ignatius, add-
ing that Islam "spreads across vast swaths of the globe that
can be colored green on the television maps in the same way
that communist countries used to be colored red."(8)

Foreign policy experts are already using the familiar
Cold War jargon to describe the coming struggle with Islam.
There is talk about the need to "contain" Iranian influence
around the globe, especially in Central Asia, which seemed
to be the main reason for Secretary of State James A. Baker
III's February stop in that region.(9) Strategists are begin-
ning to draw a "red line" for the fundamentalist leaders of
Sudan, as evidenced by a U.S. diplomat's statement last
November warning Khartoum to refrain from "exporting" revo-
lution and terrorism.(10) Washington's policymakers even ap-
plauded the January 1992 Algerian "iron fist" military coup
that prevented an Islamic group from winning the elections.
The notion that we have to stop the fundamentalists some-
where echoes the Cold War's domino theory.

"Geopolitically, Iran's targets are four--the Central
Asian republics, the Maghreb or North Africa, Egypt and
other neighboring Arab countries, and the Persian Gulf
states," explained Hoover Institution senior fellow Arnold
Beichman, who is raising the Moslem alarm. Beichman sug-
gested that "the first major target" for radical Iran and
its militant strategy would be "oil-rich, militarily weak
Saudi Arabia, keeper of Islam's holy places and OPEC's
decisionmaker on world oil prices."(11) If the West does not
meet that challenge, a Green Curtain will be drawn across
the crescent of instability, and "the Middle East and the
once Soviet Central Asian republics could become in a few
years the cultural and political dependencies of the most
expansionist militarized regime in the world today, a regime
for which terrorism is a governing norm," he warned.(12)

The Making of a "Peril"

The Islamic threat argument is becoming increasingly
popular with some segments of the American foreign policy
establishment. They are encouraged by foreign governments
who, for reasons of self-interest, want to see Washington
embroiled in the coming West vs. Islam confrontation. The
result is the construction of the new peril, a process that
does not reflect any grand conspiracy but that nevertheless
has its own logic, rules and timetables.

The creation of a peril usually starts with mysterious
"sources" and unnamed officials who leak information, float
trial balloons, and warn about the coming threat. Those
sources reflect debates and discussions taking place within
government. Their information is then augmented by colorful
intelligence reports that finger exotic and conspiratorial
terrorists and military advisers. Journalists then search
for the named and other villains. The media end up finding
corroboration from foreign sources who form an informal
coalition with the sources in the U.S. government and help
the press uncover further information substantiating the
threat coming from the new bad guys.

In addition, think tanks studies and op-ed pieces add
momentum to the official spin. Their publication is fol-
lowed by congressional hearings, policy conferences, and
public press briefings. A governmental policy debate en-
sues, producing studies, working papers, and eventually
doctrines and policies that become part of the media's spin.
The new villain is now ready to be integrated into the popu-
lar culture to help to mobilize public support for a new
crusade. In the case of the Green Peril, that process has
been under way for several months.(13)

A series of leaks, signals, and trial balloons is al-
ready beginning to shape U.S. agenda and policy. Congress
is about to conduct several hearings on the global threat of
Islamic fundamentalism.(14) The Bush administration has been
trying to devise policies and establish new alliances to
counter Iranian influence: building up Islamic but secular
and pro-Western Turkey as a countervailing force in Central
Asia, expanding U.S. commitments to Saudi Arabia, warning
Sudan that it faces grave consequences as a result of its
policies, and even shoring up a socialist military dictator-
ship in Algeria.

Regional Powers Exploit U.S. Fears

Not surprisingly, foreign governments, including those
of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, India, and Pakistan,
have reacted to the evidence of U.S. fear. With the end of
the Cold War they are concerned about a continued U.S. com-
mitment to them and are trying to exploit the menace of
Islamic fundamentalism to secure military support, economic
aid, and political backing from Washington as well as to
advance their own domestic and regional agendas. The Gulf
War has already provided the Turks, Saudis, Egyptians, and
Israelis with an opportunity to revive the American engage-
ment in the Middle East and their own roles as Washington's
regional surrogates. Now that the Iraqi danger has been di-
minished, the Islamic fundamentalist threat is a new vehicle
for achieving those goals.

Pakistan, which lost its strategic value to the United
States as a conduit of military aid to the guerrillas in
Afghanistan, and India, whose Cold War Soviet ally has dis-
integrated, are both competing for American favors by using
the Islamic card in their struggle for power in Southwest
Asia. That struggle involves such issues as the Kashmir
problem and an accelerating nuclear arms race.(15)

Even such disparate entities as Australia and the Ira-
nian Mojahedin opposition forces are conducting public rela-
tions and lobbying efforts in the United States based on the
Islamic fundamentalist threat. Colin Rubenstein recently
discussed the need to maintain an American military presence
in Asia to contain the power of the Moslem government in
Malaysia, which according to him has adopted increasingly
repressive measures at home and has been developing military
ties with Libya as part of a strategy to spread its radical
Islamic message in Asia. If Washington refuses to project
its diplomatic and military power to contain the Malaysian-
produced Islamic threat in Asia, there is a danger that the
United States and Australia will soon face anti-American and
anti-Israeli blocs, Rubenstein insisted.(16)

The Iranian opposition group, which in the past has
subscribed to socialist and anti-American positions, is now
interested in maintaining U.S. pressure on the government of
President Hashemi Rafsanjani and in winning Western public
support. To achieve those goals it is playing up the possi
bility of a Tehran-led political terrorist campaign aimed at
creating an "Islamic bloc" in Central Asia, the Middle East,
and North Africa and suggesting that to avoid such a cam-
paign Washington should back the Mojahedin in Tehran.(17)

Even Washington's long-time nemesis--the hard-core
Marxist and former Soviet ally, former president Mohammad
Najibullah of Afghanistan, against whom the United States
helped sponsor Pakistani-directed guerrilla warfare--a few
days before his ouster from power offered his services in
the new struggle against the radical Islamic threat. "We
have a common task, Afghanistan, the United States of Ameri-
ca, and the civilized world, to launch a joint struggle
against fundamentalism," he explained. Najibullah warned
Washington that unless he was kept in power, Islamic funda-
mentalists would take over Afghanistan and turn it into a
"center of world smuggling for narcotic drugs" and a "center
for terrorism."(18)

The Beneficiaries and Their Motives

Growing American fears about the Green Peril are play-
ing into the hands of governments and groups who, interest-
ingly enough, tend to regard the Islamic threat as exagger-
ated. The behavior of those groups and governments recalls
the way Third World countries exploited the U.S. obsession
with the Red Menace during the Cold War despite their own
skepticism about its long-term power.

Pakistani officials, for example, reportedly "regard
with some amusement Washington's seeming frenzied concern
about the spread of fundamentalism in Central Asia, fears
they hope to exploit by presenting themselves as sober prag-
matists who happen to be Muslims." Indeed, the Pakistani
government, like the Turkish government, has expressed the
hope that Washington will adopt it as a new strategic ally
and is encouraging Washington "to regard Islamabad as a
partner in the Central Asian republics, and in the process
[limit] the influence of Iran."(19)

Similarly, India, with its growing Hindu nationalist
elements, its continuing conflict with Pakistan, and its
foreign policy disorientation at the end of the Cold War,
has begun to present itself as the countervailing force to
the Islamic menace in Asia and Pakistan.(20)

The Israeli government and its supporters in Washington
are also trying to play the Islamic card. The specter of
Central Asian republics and Iran equipped with nuclear weap-
ons helps Israel to reduce any potential international pres
sure on it to place its own nuclear capabilities and strate-
gy on the negotiating table. More important, perhaps, the
Green Peril could revive, in the long run, Israel's role as
America's strategic asset, which was eroded as a result of
the end of the Cold War and was seriously questioned during
the Gulf War.(21)

Israel could become the contemporary crusader nation, a
bastion of the West in the struggle against the new trans-
national enemy, Islamic fundamentalism. According to Daniel
Doron, "With the momentous upheavals rocking the Muslim
World, the Arab-Israeli conflict is a sideshow with little
geopolitical significance." It is a derivative conflict in
which Israel is "the target of convenience for Islam's great
sense of hurt and obsessive hostility towards the West."(22)

The operational message is that the United States "must
refocus its policy on the basic problems facing the Islamic
world rather than only the Arab-Israeli conflict."(23) Jerus-
alem's attempts to turn that conflict into a Jewish-Moslem
confrontation and to place America on its side to help con-
tain radical Moslem forces in the region may become a self-
fulfilling prophecy. The result is likely to be strength-
ened anti-American feelings in the Middle East and
anti-American terrorist acts, which, in turn, will invite a
new round of American military intervention.

Egypt's role in the Gulf War has produced some economic
benefits, including forgiveness of its $7 billion debt to
the United States, and its agreement with Israel has im-
proved Cairo's position as a mediator in the peace process.
However, Washington's post-Desert Storm expectation that
Cairo would play an active role in the new security arrange-
ment in the gulf has proven unrealistic. Saudi Arabia and
other conservative gulf monarchies have been less than en-
thusiastic about Egypt's playing a military role in the
region. Since it cannot become a U.S. surrogate in the
gulf, Cairo is focusing on its neighbor, Sudan, as a new
bogeyman, or radical threat, in the Middle East and
sub-Saharan Africa. Presumably, Cairo hopes thereby to gain
new significance in the American global perspective. Exag-
gerating the threat also gives Cairo an environment condu-
cive to military action against Sudan that could fulfill the
historical Egyptian goal of turning that country into a
protectorate of Cairo.

Sudan: A New Scapegoat

The danger of Sudan's becoming a center of subversion
is greatly exaggerated. It is true that Khartoum is ruled
today by a military government controlled by the National
Islamic Front whose leader, Hassan el-Turabi, wishes to
spread his version of fundamentalist Islam in Africa and the
Middle East.(24) It is also possible that some Palestinian
and Lebanese terrorists visit or even reside in Sudan.(25)
But American and Egyptian denunciation of Sudan's "harboring
terrorists" is hypocritical considering Washington's ties
with its Gulf War "ally" Syria, home to several terrorist
groups, and Cairo's current diplomatic romance with Libya,
another center of international terrorism.

Iranian officials, including President Rafsanjani, did
visit Sudan several times as part of Tehran's efforts to
break the diplomatic isolation imposed on it by Washington.
That is hardly evidence of a Khartoum-Tehran political axis,
however. The Sudanese seem interested mainly in Iranian
economic aid, including subsidized oil. It is not clear
that the two countries have common political objectives or
that either regime's goals are consistently hostile to U.S.
interests. During the gulf crisis, the Iranians tried to
convince the leaders in Khartoum to join them in isolating
Saddam--not an "anti-American" move--but the Sudanese de-
clined. In contrast to Tehran, Khartoum supports the Pales-
tine Liberation Organization and the U.S.-brokered Middle
East peace process. The Sudanese also supported the Wash-
ington-backed rebel groups that came to power in Ethiopia
and Eritrea.(26)

Moreover, Sudan is one of the world's most miserable
economic basket cases. It has a relatively weak military
that is no match for the Egyptian army and is embroiled in
suppressing a bloody civil war in the south. The notion
that Sudan has the power to destabilize the countries of
Africa and the Middle East is far-fetched.

An "Iranian Scenario" in Saudi Arabia?

As has that of Egypt and Israel, Saudi Arabia's use of
the Green Peril to mobilize U.S. support has been character-
ized by confusion, ironies, and paradoxes, the most dramatic
of which has been the kingdom's own commitment to Islamic
fundamentalism. With the elimination of Iraq as a regional
military power, the Saudi royal family, worried about the
rise of Tehran as a hegemonic player in the gulf, has been
fanning the anti-fundamentalist and anti-Iranian mood in
Washington. The Saudis have indicated that they are inter-
ested in countering Iranian influence in Central Asia.
Ironically, they are doing what they accuse Tehran of--
spending lavishly to establish political and religious in-
fluence. Riyadh has spent more than $1 billion to promote
the Saudi brand of Islam.(27) Along with Egypt, Saudi Arabia
has also been supporting the Somali president against a
faction, supported by Iran, that is trying to overthrow
him.(28)

The Saudi Propaganda Campaign

A series of reports about resurgent militant Islamic
forces in Saudi Arabia (which also portrayed the royal fami-
ly as a politically reformist regime and active supporter of
the U.S.-led peace process) has been used to try to mobilize
American support for the Saudis as a "moderate pillar" and
anti-fundamentalist force in the gulf, the Middle East, and
Central Asia.(29)

The problem with that campaign is that the legitimacy
of the Saudi regime is based on its own Islamic fundamental-
ist principles. The Saudi government is actually more rigid
in its application of Islamic law and more repressive in
many respects than the one in Tehran. For example, Saudi
Arabia has no form of popular representation, and political
rights are totally denied women and non-Moslems. The Saudi
regime has been able to stay in power largely because it has
had both direct and indirect American military support, most
recently during the Gulf War. To paraphrase President
Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Saudis are Islamic fundamental-
ists--but they are our Islamic fundamentalists.(30)

The recent celebrated Saudi foreign policy "assertive-
ness" and domestic "moderation" are little more than public
relations gimmicks orchestrated by Riyadh's flamboyant am-
bassador to Washington and supported by King Fahd. They are
intended to win brownie points with the American public.
The Saudi interest in signing huge arms deals with U.S.
companies, for example, could help to secure the survival of
the dwindling American defense industry and provide "jobs,
jobs, jobs." The administration has abetted that strategy.
In spite of Bush's post-Gulf War rhetoric, the administra-
tion has announced that it is providing arms packages to the
Middle East totaling $4 billion, of which close to $1 bil-
lion in aircraft-delivered bombs, cluster bombs, air-to-air
missiles, and military vehicles is destined for Saudi
Arabia.(31)

The participation of the Saudis in the Madrid peace
conference, although it had a very marginal effect on the
outcome of the negotiations, helped to strengthen Bush's
political popularity at home by suggesting that the Gulf War
did achieve "something." The recent meetings between Saudi
officials and American Jewish leaders, including the invita
tion extended leaders of American Jewish organizations to
travel to Saudi Arabia, must be viewed in that context.
Such conciliatory gestures can also be seen as part of an
effort to neutralize the Israeli lobby's Capitol Hill oppo-
sition to arms sales to the kingdom.(32)

Prerevolutionary Conditions in Saudi Arabia

There are clear indications of continuing domestic
opposition to the Saudi royal family. The House of Saud has
resisted any move toward serious political and economic
reforms proposed by Westernized Saudi elites. That intran-
sigence reflects a catch-22 dilemma facing the House of
Saud, which was accentuated by the American military inter-
vention in the gulf. On the one hand, the regime's raison
d'�tre is its commitment to strict, anti-Western Islamic
tenets, including support for Islamic fundamentalist groups
in the Third World. On the other hand, to survive, the
House of Saud needs the support of the West's prime power,
the United States, which invites criticism from the conser-
vative elements in the kingdom.

With Westernized opposition silenced, the only viable
opposition to the royal family tends to be found in reli-
gious elements who enjoy relative autonomy in the Saudi
system and focus on the discrepancy between the Saudi
regime's Islamic pretensions and its ties with America. The
numbers of fundamentalists in Saudi Arabia have grown con-
siderably since the Persian Gulf crisis and, according to
one observer, "are now estimated to include tens of thou-
sands of younger radical religious leaders, Islamic univer-
sity teachers and students."(33) Those leaders criticized the
arrival of the American troops during the Gulf War and have
attacked Saudi support for the Arab-Israeli peace process as
well as the political and personal conduct of the Saudi
leadership.

Washington, through its public rhetoric during the Gulf
War, heightened expectations for democratic reforms in the
Arab states of the gulf, only to collaborate later with the
Saudis in stifling any possible moves in that direction.
The Bush administration and the Saudis helped to restore the
emir of Kuwait, whose government immediately resumed its
harassment of proponents of democracy and launched a cam-
paign of repression against and expulsion of the Palestin-
ians living there. The Saudis were also apparently behind
the American effort to prevent the weakening of the central
government in Baghdad and the possible emergence of a Kurd-
ish state or Iraqi Shi'ite autonomy.(34)

Washington should, therefore, not be surprised if, as
the provider of the main mercenary forces for the Saudi
regime and its interests in the region, it ends up being the
focus of hostility for the opposition groups in Saudi Arabia
and the Arab gulf states.

The cosmetic political reforms announced in early March
1991, including the creation of a Consultive Council (to be
chosen by the king himself), were portrayed in the American
press as signs of a Saudi version of perestroika. In reali-
ty, the new measures do not introduce any elements of
Western-style democracy; they are more akin to streamlining
voting procedures in the Communist party in the Soviet Union
in the 1950s. They are certainly not going to solve the
regime's legitimacy problem.(35)

Article 19, a London-based freedom-of-expression watch-
dog group, reported recently that since the Gulf War there
has been no lessening of the Saudi government's control over
all aspects of life. What is permissible in Saudi Arabia is
synonymous with the wishes of the current ruler, King Fahd,
and "anything contradicting the origins or the jurisdiction
of Islam, undermining the sanctity of Islam . . . or harming
public morality" is subject to censorship. Artistic and
academic freedoms, for example, are severely limited or
nonexistent, and the media are under total government
control.(36)

Dangers to the United States

It is not the Green Peril that the United States is
facing in the gulf but the peril embodied in its own poli-
cies. The pre-Gulf War Saudi debility stemmed from a will-
ingness to secure the kingdom's interests through the pres-
ervation of an inter-Arab diplomatic framework for solving
regional problems and the maintenance of a regional military
balance of power. The American intervention in the gulf
completely destroyed those two mechanisms. It led to the
collapse of the Arab diplomatic order as a mechanism for
dealing with crises and to the destruction of the balance of
power in the gulf. It turned Washington into a local diplo-
matic hegemonic power and military "balancer." Those devel-
opments have made the Saudis not more "assertive" but more
dependent for their survival, domestically and regionally,
on American power. The fact that Saudi Arabia is for all
practical purposes an American dependent today is perhaps
one of the most dramatic results of the war. The perceived
Saudi willingness to take "risks," such as attending the
Madrid peace conference and refusing to subsidize the PLO,
is largely based on the expectation that Washington will
secure Saudi interests by, for example, "delivering" Israel
to the negotiating table or deterring potential anti-Saudi
Palestinian terrorism.

The current American-Saudi relationship resembles the
U.S.-Iranian relationship during the shah's rule. In ex-
change for granting access to oil supplies and military
installations and showing a willingness to make the politi-
cally correct moves on Israel, the Saudi regime receives
security protection masquerading as an "alliance" with Wash-
ington. That arrangement, however, lacks the clear defini-
tions of obligations and rules of the game that characterize
formal alliances.

Indeed, the "alliance" seems to involve an open-ended
commitment on the part of Washington to continue supporting
the Saudis, without a clear quid pro quo on their part. As
was the case with the shah's Iran (and Israel today), Saudi
Arabia's chief perquisite of being America's client state is
the "freedom of enjoying a commitment without paying a pen-
alty of being an ally."(37)

The U.S.-Saudi relationship produces destructive domes-
tic political consequences for both countries. Washington
is tying its interests to the survival of the repressive
Saudi regime, while allowing the latter--through the control
of oil prices, the buying of American military equipment,
and cooperation in U.S. covert operations--to exert leverage
on American policy and politics.

The specter of Iran does hang over Saudi Arabia, but
not the way Riyadh is framing it, that is, as a consequence
of subversive activity by an external power. The original
revolution in Tehran, which was the first mass urban upris-
ing in the Middle East and led to the establishment of
Western-derived political institutions, was very much a
product of American policies. If a revolutionary regime
comes to power in Saudi Arabia and subordinates its institu-
tions and mechanics to an anti-Western theocratic expression
of nationalist ideology, U.S. policy, not the "exporting of
radical Islam" from Iran, will be the culprit.

Iran

The foreign policy that has been pursued since the end
of the Iran-Iraq War by the leadership in Tehran, headed by
the reform-minded President Rafsanjani and the so-called
"pragmatic group of revolutionary clerics,"(38) has reflected
an effort to advance Iranian national interest more by
regaining that state's traditional role as a gulf power and
strengthening its economy than by orchestrating a regional
or global messianic crusade. Iranian policies have stressed
diplomatic pragmatism and military caution coupled with an
effort to liberalize and privatize Iran's centralized econo-
my, expand its trade relationships, alleviate its huge for-
eign debt problems, and satisfy its need for infrastructure.

Signs of Moderation

While the Saudi regime has pursued very superficial
political and economic reforms, the government in Tehran has
removed many of the religious restrictions, especially those
on women, and helped to reinvigorate a quite lively parlia-
mentary and political debate, which culminated in the criti-
cal parliamentary election in April 1992. Iran, according
to Eric Hooglund, "compared to its Arab neighbors, does
appear to have some political characteristics typical of
democratic governments."(39)

Rafsanjani, himself from a wealthy pistachio-growing
family, has sided with the wealthy merchants who ran Iran's
economy in the years before the revolution brought national-
ization and state control. He has welcomed foreign invest-
ment and called on Iranian expatriates to return and invest
in the country.(40)

Iran's economy after the war with Iraq was depressed and
contorted by artificial controls. Since then, the govern-
ment has launched a major program to demilitarize the econo-
my. "Fortunately, we don't have any serious military
threat," explained the governor of Iran's central bank.
"The threat we do have is economic," he argued. "If you
don't have enough food, even if you have the most sophisti-
cated tank, how are you going to use it?"(41)

A Conventional Foreign Policy

Iran's policies during the gulf crisis and the war that
followed were an example of textbook realpolitik diplomacy.
The Iranian leadership was able to separate its ideological
and historical baggage, including its resentment of both
Washington and Baghdad--after all, Saddam invaded Iran in
1979 with a green light from the United States and the
United Nations--from its vital, hard-core national inter-
ests.

Criticizing Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and rejecting the
permanent presence of U.S. military forces in the gulf,
Tehran remained neutral during the crisis and the war that
ensued. It took advantage of the developments in the gulf
to sign a peace agreement with Iraq; to reestablish diplo-
matic relations with the Arab countries in the allied camp,
above all with Saudi Arabia; and to improve its relations
with countries that supported Iraq, especially Sudan.(42)

However, during the crisis Iran refrained from exploit-
ing the weakness of the central government in Baghdad, ex-
cept in the most cautious fashion. Its support for efforts
to oust Saddam among Iraq's Shi'ite majority remained sur-
prisingly limited. Similarly, Tehran did not take advantage
of the anti-American feeling in the region to incite the
Moslem world against the U.S. presence in the gulf. Rafsan-
jani's government even offered its services as a mediator
between the United States and Iraq. Iran supported Ameri-
can, Saudi, and Turkish policies intended to replace Saddam
with a more benign Iraqi leader and, like those states,
expressed its interest in preventing the disintegration of
Iraq after Operation Desert Storm.

Despite its anti-Israeli rhetoric, Iran supported the
U.S. position that the Palestinian-Israeli problem and gulf
security issues, including the invasion of Kuwait, should
not be linked (as Saddam had demanded). In addition, after
years of boycotting the UN Security Council, Tehran ex-
pressed an interest in becoming a member. It also reestab-
lished diplomatic relations with Great Britain and expanded
relations with other Western countries.(43) All of those ac-
tions were consistent with a conventional state's advancing
its foreign policy interests, not a messianic state's seek-
ing to foment revolution.

Postwar Initiatives

In the aftermath of the war, Iran has played a stabi-
lizing role in the Middle East. Tehran pressured radical
Shi'ite groups to release U.S. hostages in Lebanon, dis-
patched diplomats to mend its relationship with Saudi Ara-
bia, and even sent fire fighters to the oil fields of Ku-
wait. More significant, perhaps, Iran launched plans for
reintegrating itself into the gulf security system, a move
intended to strengthen its own interests while providing the
Arab gulf states with a countervailing force against a fu-
ture threat from Iraq. Iranian spokesmen stated the need to
replace "ideological radicalism" with "pragmatic politics"
and argued that the fragile balance of power in the gulf,
which was responsible for the outbreak of both the Iran-Iraq
war and the Persian Gulf War, should be replaced with "clear
lines and frameworks for a new approach to security issues
of the region."(44) The Iranians presented a far-reaching
plan for a regional collective security arrangement based on
cooperation between the members of the Gulf Cooperation
Council (GCC), noninterference of regional countries in each
other's internal affairs, confidence-building measures, arms
control structures, and economic reconstruction programs.(45)

Notwithstanding alarming U.S. intelligence reports,
Iranian policy toward the Central Asian and Caucacus repub-
lics has been confined to efforts to gradually establish
diplomatic, economic, and cultural ties with some of the
newly independent states, especially with those, such as
Azerbaijan, that have large Shi'ite populations. There are
no indications that Tehran is engaged in political and reli-
gious "subversion" of the region, unless one considers help-
ing set up mosques or religious schools subversive.(46)

While proposing ideas for regional security and trade
cooperation, Iran has rejected efforts to exclude it from
post-Desert Storm security arrangements through the creation
of an exclusive Arab-dominated system there and, on a more
general level, has expressed its opposition to a Pax Ameri-
cana in the region. The latter is seen by Iranians as ana-
chronistic at a time when the Soviet threat has disappeared.
They believe that regional threats can be contained by re-
gional powers and that foreign intervention is
destabilizing.

Indeed, Iran's message to the Saudis and the six-member
GCC has been simple and straightforward. Iran is willing to
play a positive role in the security of the gulf but will
reject "extraregional arrangements" involving nongulf Arab
states, such as Egypt, or the continuing presence of West-
ern, especially American, military forces in the region.(47)

Iran's position was one factor in Saudi Arabia's deci-
sion to reject a U.S.-supported proposal embodied in the
so-called Damascus Declaration of early 1991. That declara-
tion proposed that Saudi Arabia and the other GCC states
base their security on the continuing presence of an Arab
regional defense force led by Egypt and Syria. Tehran made
it clear that it regarded such an arrangement as a hostile
Pan-Arabist move.(48) The Iranian objective appears to be a
Middle Eastern security system that would not be exclusively
Arab but would include Pakistan and Turkey.

An Inconsistent U.S. Policy

Although Washington has never made clear its vision of
a gulf security arrangement--it has supported such diverse
ideas as a "Middle Eastern NATO" as well as the Damascus
Declaration--its policy and statements suggest that it sees
its interests in the region secured through a "strategic
consensus" involving four pillars--Saudi Arabia, Egypt,
Turkey, and Israel. An "occasional United States presence"
would supplement their efforts and ensure that the oil re-
sources of the region would "not be controlled by somebody
fundamentally hostile to our interests."(49) It is not sur-
prising that, from their vantage point, the Iranian leader-
ship perceives those American plans and the continued U.S.
military presence in the region as directed against them.

Washington has responded to the positive signals coming
from Iran with mixed messages. On the one hand, the U.S.
government is gradually trying to take advantage of
Rafsanjani's moves toward a free-market economy and to ex-
pand economic relations with Tehran. Initially, the Bush
administration had restricted U.S. trade with Iran and had
even tried to keep other countries from investing in that
country. It was only last year that the administration
removed some trade restrictions. The result was that trade
between Iran and the United States leaped 300 percent as the
United States became the sixth-largest exporter to Iran,
with more than $5 million in exports. Moreover, the admin-
istration recently withdrew its objections to the sale of
European-made Airbus passenger jets, which use U.S.-made
engines, to Iran.(50)

On the other hand, when it comes to the diplomatic and
military arenas, Washington seems to be intent on treating
Iran as a pariah state, a "strategic enemy," as Patrick
Clawson put it.(51) The Bush administration has rejected
Iran's reintegration into the gulf security system and has
denounced alleged Iranian pursuit of a nuclear military
path.

The Issue of Nuclear Weapons

Washington's reports about Iranian attempts to acquire
nuclear capability are denied by Tehran, and the evidence is
ambiguous. Even if Iran does have nuclear ambitions, such
Iranian moves are not necessarily a reflection of "radical"
foreign policy goals. Avner Yaniv, an Israeli military
analyst, suggested recently that "as the leaders in Tehran
see it, since Pakistan for all practical purposes is a nu-
clear military power and Iraq, notwithstanding U.S. efforts,
is moving in that direction--and the main target of Saddam's
nuclear efforts is Tehran--Iran is now surrounded by a cir-
cle of nuclear threats." Rafsanjani's attempt to acquire
nuclear capability is defensive in nature, and "any other
regime in Tehran would have taken similar steps," concluded
Yaniv (indeed, it was America's friend the shah who initi-
ated Iran's nuclear arms program).

Yaniv raised another interesting point. Some observers
expressed concern that Iran's overtures to Kazakhstan might
be part of an effort to try to take advantage of that Moslem
state's nuclear military capability. He argued that, if
anything, a nuclear Kazakhstan--which with 1,500 nuclear
warheads has a larger arsenal than France--is actually per-
ceived by Iran as a major threat to its security, not as a
source of support for its own nuclear program.(52)

Certainly, American efforts to isolate Iran only
strengthen its sense of insecurity and may accelerate its
nuclear drive. At the same time, Iran's ideas for regional
security arrangements--rejected by Washington--have at least
the potential for creating some mechanism for controlling
arms, including nuclear arms.

Moreover, by continuing to try to isolate Iran, Wash-
ington is weakening the forces of Rafsanjani and the more
pragmatic wing of the current Iranian regime that won a
massive victory in the parliamentary elections on April 10,
1992. Without a large flow of foreign investment and in a
continuing hostile diplomatic environment, Rafsanjani and
his allies in the parliament will find it difficult to con-
tinue their efforts to demilitarize and reform the economy
and to pursue a moderate diplomatic path.

American hostility toward Iran is understandable given
the anti-Western nature of the Iranian revolution, the 1979
seizure of the American embassy in Tehran, the threat to
assassinate author Salman Rushdie, and the ties between Iran
and radical Moslem groups.

However, Iranian behavior should be seen in its histori-
cal context. The legacy of U.S. intervention in Iran after
World War II, especially Washington's support for the re-
pressive regime of the shah, left a residue of hostility
toward American policy, not only among Islamic radicals, but
also among more secular and Westernized Iranians. That
hostility was only strengthened after what was seen in Iran
as U.S. support for the Iraqi invasion of Iran and American
efforts to prevent an Iranian victory in the war with
Baghdad.

Constraints on Iranian Power

The image of Iran as the new regional bogeyman is exag-
gerated. Iranian foreign policy seems to project a prag
matic understanding of world and regional politics and a
careful application of diplomatic and military means. Even
if one assumes that Iran is intent in spreading Islamic
radicalism and creating a huge monolithic bloc stretching
from North Africa to India, it is obvious that Tehran does
not have the power to achieve that goal and will be pre-
vented from doing so by such powerful states as Russia,
Pakistan, Israel, and Egypt, even without American prodding.

In addition to the constraints placed on potential
Iranian expansionism by its powerful neighbors, Iran lacks
the capabilities to carry out such ambitious game plans.
The condition of Iran today resembles that of the Soviet
Union at the beginning of its decline: a bankrupt economy, a
dissatisfied population, ethnic rivalries, and an official
ideology that does not respond to the needs of the citizens.
Iran cannot serve as a "model" for other Moslem societies or
as a "magnet" for Shi'ite groups in the region. There are
major questions about whether it will even survive in its
current condition.

Indeed, Iran, a large country with a population of more
than 55 million, is itself a miniempire where a small Per-
sian majority (a little more than 50 percent of the popula-
tion) controls several ethnic and religious groups, includ-
ing Arabs and Kurds who have strong ties to other states and
groups in the region. Hence, the possibility of the politi-
cal disintegration of Central Asia and the Caucacus into
different states and nationalities may pose a danger to
Iran's identity and stability.

For example, 20 million Azeris live in Iran and only 7
million in Azerbaijan itself. One Azeri faction calls for
secession from Iran and the establishment of a united repub-
lic (a Soviet-sponsored independent republic that existed 45
years ago proclaimed that large areas of northern Iran were
part of its homeland). Therefore, it is not surprising that
the governments in Tehran and in Baku have a common interest
in preserving current borders. That is also a common inter-
est of Turkey and Iran. Both are opposed to the creation of
an independent Kurdish state that would serve as a magnet
for their own large Kurdish minorities.(53)

Tajikistan, whose language is close to Persian, seems
to be the only Central Asian state where some sympathy for
Iran's political model exists. There, the Islamic Renais-
sance party, banned in other republics, operates openly and
claims 20,000 members. As were those of the anti-communist
struggle of the Catholic church in Poland, Iranian efforts
in Tajikistan have been directed mainly at weakening the
Tajik Communist party. Last September, for example, Tehran
covertly supported a peaceful uprising against a communist
power grab in Tajikistan, allegedly paying demonstrators 100
rubles a day to lead Moslem prayers and demand the resigna-
tion of the Tajik communist leadership.(54)

In any case, Iran's Shi'ite religion is not shared by
the majority of the 60 million Moslems in Central Asia (most
of whom are Sunnis--with the notable exception of Shi'ite
Azeris) and the Middle East. That presents a major obstacle
to Iran's alleged ability to export its religious influence.
Notwithstanding expectations after the revolution in Iran
that a wave of pro-Iranian Islamic fundamentalism would
engulf the Arab world, support for Khomeini and revolution
remained limited and confined to Shi'ite communities.

Moreover, even Shi'ite groups in the region have been
resistant to Iranian overtures. Shi'ite identity does not
guarantee allegiance to Tehran and is in most cases weaker
than national or ethnic identity. Indeed, despite the reli-
gious affinity between Iranian Shi'ites and the Shi'ite
majority in Iraq, the latter fought on the side of other
Iraqi Arabs during the war with Iran and rejected Iranian
calls to secede from Iraq and join the fight against
Saddam.(55)

The Need for a Conciliatory U.S. Approach

Iran's cautious foreign policy reflects a recognition
among its leaders of the major weakness and fragility of
their political rule, economy, and the state structure it-
self. Instead of trying to isolate Iran, Washington should
take advantage of that country's need for economic invest-
ment and diplomatic acceptance and the existence of islands
of free enterprise and pro-American sentiment (as opposed to
pro-U.S. government policies) among some of the political
and intellectual elite.

The United States could encourage Tehran's drive for
integration into a gulf security structure. As Shireen
Hunter explained, "Any security scheme must recognize the
Gulf region's unique ethnic, religious, and cultural charac-
teristics" and "its dual Arab and Iranian character." An
attempt to exclude or isolate any country dooms any arrange-
ment there. Hence, "any security framework that portrays
Iran as the regional bully and aims to exclude it would be
self-defeating" and "would be a sure recipe for pushing Iran
toward extremism."(56)

However, American policy in the Middle East in general,
and in the gulf in particular, is still motivated by a drive
for hegemony in the region and attempts to build new "re-
gional pillars" to support that goal. U.S. leaders seem
unwilling to accept Iran's idea of an independent regional
security system. Instead, Washington is trying to turn Iran
into the new bogeyman whose alleged ideological and military
threat necessitates American intervention in the region and
the establishment of new "pillars." That policy is detri-
mental to the interests of the states in the region as well
as to the long-term goals of the United States.

Return of the Great Game in Central Asia

One of the pillars Washington hopes to rely on is Tur-
key. The perceived rising Islamic threat in the Central
Asian republics has given rise to suggestions on the part of
officials in Ankara that America use Turkey as a new pillar
to contain Iranian expansionism. Those proposals, which
range from having Turkey serve as a cultural and political-
economic "model" for the new Moslem republics to having
Turkey play a more active political and military role in the
Middle East and Central Asia, have come at a time of growing
Turkish apprehension about the future of NATO, the U.S.
security role in Europe, and Turkey's value to the Western
alliance.

Turkish Losses from the Gulf War

Turkish president Turgut Ozal's strategy of close coop-
eration with the United States during the Gulf War was in-
tended to reaffirm Ankara's commitment to U.S.-Turkish bi-
lateral relations and to highlight Turkey's importance to
U.S. strategic interests and concerns in the Middle East.
By promptly terminating the flow of petroleum from the Iraqi
pipelines, Turkey made a major contribution to the effective
implementation of the UN-authorized sanctions against Iraq.
During Operation Desert Storm, Ankara played a key role in
the coalition's war effort by permitting U.S. military air-
craft access to the Incirlik air base for strikes against
Iraq and by deploying near the Iraqi border 100,000 Turkish
troops who pinned down an equal number of Iraqi airmen.

Notwithstanding Washington's efforts in the aftermath
of Operation Desert Storm to provide Turkey with increased
security assistance and new trade benefits, Ankara's in-
volvement in the Gulf War has not produced the "new strate-
gic relationship" that Ozal expected. Nor were Turkey's
NATO allies appreciative enough of Turkey's contribution to
the war to give Ankara a more favorable hearing on its ap-
plication for admission to the European Community. (NATO's
members, especially Germany, were also opposed to what
seemed to be Turkish, and by extension U.S., efforts to
extend, through the defense of Turkey, the organization's
out-of-area military role.)

Moreover, the Gulf War embroiled Turkey in the regional
politics of the Middle East, a dramatic departure from the
European orientation of the Turkish republic's founder,
Kemal Ataturk. The fact that, contrary to Ozal's expecta-
tions, Saddam has remained in power has left Turkey with a
major security threat on its southern border.

The war also vastly complicated Turkey's Kurdish prob-
lem. A significant percentage of Turkey's population is
Kurdish, and many Turks are of Kurdish origin. Turkey
shared Saudi Arabia's opposition to the disintegration of
Iraq, fearing that it would lead to the establishment of an
independent Kurdish state. U.S. efforts to aid the Kurds in
northern Iraq via Turkey through Operation Provide Comfort
allowed Kurdish guerrillas to increase their operations from
Iraq against Turkey.(57)

When both violence on the part of separatist Kurdish
guerrillas in southeastern Turkey and repressive measures
taken against them by Turkish military forces grew, the
German government imposed an arms embargo against Ankara in
March 1992 and accused it of using German weapons to put
down the Kurds.(58)

A U.S. Surrogate

Ozal's efforts, with U.S. support, to establish politi-
cal ties with the nearly 45 million Turkic people in
Azerbaijan and the former Soviet Central Asian republics can
be seen as a way of countering the negative repercussions of
the Gulf War by trying to find new foreign policy outlets
for Turkey and revive its strategic importance to the West,
especially the United States.

However, overtures to the new Moslem republics also
went against another Kemalist principle: noninterference in
the affairs of neighboring states on behalf of Turkic minor-
ities. Ankara's efforts have already kindled fears of a
rise of Pan-Turkism and a revival of centuries-old ambitions
to establish a Greater Turkistan.

With the decline and eventual collapse of Moscow's
central authority, Ankara began to expand its political and
economic ties with Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Turk-
menistan, and Uzbekistan. A flurry of diplomatic visits has
been accompanied by the signing of an economic and commer-
cial agreement as well as cultural exchanges.(59)

Ozal and his aides did not hide their hope that Turkey
would achieve a stronger regional and global status as a
result of its new penetration into Central Asia. That new
foreign policy orientation, which sparked interest in post-
Gulf War Washington and was encouraged by the Bush adminis-
tration, assumed that Turkey, together with Egypt, Israel,
and Saudi Arabia, would become the four pillars of American
hegemony in the region.

Under that strategy, Turkey and the other American sur-
rogates that help the United States to control the strategic
centers and oil resources of the Middle East are viewed as
instruments to contain the radical Islamic forces that are
supposedly led by Iran.

Islam's Limited Influence in Central Asia

Contrary to the Green Peril paradigm, Central Asia does
not seem to be in danger of turning, under Iranian influ-
ence, into a monolithic "Islamic crescent." Visitors to the
region find instead a complex mixture of national, ethnic,
and religious groups and political and economic interests.
Ties to outside nations are clearly being sought for econom-
ic deliverance rather than as a religious and cultural de-
nominator.

Although it sometimes worked with democratic forces to
undermine the old communist regimes, Islam has remained a
marginal political force in Central Asia. The popular na-
tionalist movements in those states reflect secular identi-
ties with a populist anti-Russian bent, and the more liberal
ones attempt to foster coexistence among the different reli-
gious and ethnic groups.(60)

Although some of the Moslem republics established dip-
lomatic, cultural, and economic ties with Iran, none of them
appear interested in imitating the Iranian political and
economic model. Kazakhstan, Kirgizia, Turkmenistan, and
most other republics favor Western-oriented models of devel-
opment. "Iran would take us back to the Middle Ages," ar-
gued an adviser to the Azerbaijani president. Instead, "the
prevailing vision seems to be economic progress in a secular
society," with Turkey serving as a secular free-market model
for modernization.(61)

Dangers of an Anti-Turkish Backlash

In trying to gain economic influence in the region,
however, Turkey faces dilemmas similar to those Germany and
Japan face in their trading zones. Any effort on Turkey's
part to play a political-military role in the area as a
counterweight to Iran--as part of the American strategy to
become the hegemonic power in the region--could produce a
backlash and reduce Ankara's influence and ability to suc-
ceed as a trading state.

Turkey has strong cultural ties to Central Asia whose
people, with the exception of the Tajikistanis, speak vari-
ants of Turkish. To strengthen those ties, Turkey helped
the Central Asian republic of Azerbaijan to change from the
Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet, which has been used in Tur-
key since the 1920s, and which Azerbaijan formally adopted
in January 1992.(62)

Although they welcome Turkey's playing a cultural role,
the Central Asians are concerned that a Turkish expansionist
policy in the region could easily be converted into Pan-
Turkism, which has had a nonsecular Islamic character. That
development could frighten non-Turkic peoples, such as the
Kurds and the Armenians, and create pro-Iranian movements
among the Persian-speaking population in such states as
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Pan-Turkism could also produce a backlash from the Arab
states, Pakistan, India, and even China. Seventy years of
socialist state and nation building have produced separate
notions of identity in the various Turkic-speaking repub-
lics, and it is unlikely that they will gravitate toward
unity or accept Turkey as a dominating and unifying regional
power. The player that would be most opposed to Turkey's
assuming a leading role in the region would be Iran. An
American effort to groom Turkey as the policeman of Central
Asia could, therefore, have the same disastrous consequences
that U.S. attempts to make Iran the gendarme of the gulf had
in the 1970s or its support for Iraq as a countervailing
force to Iran had in the 1980s. Turning Ankara into a stra-
tegic pillar in Central Asia could also weaken the Turkish
economy, increase the political power of the military, and
contribute to a growing Turkish-Iranian rift that could
escalate into war.

Turkey's Resistance to Washington's Strategy

Indeed, in November 1991 Turkish voters, concerned
about the domestic and regional costs involved in being
Washington's cop in the Middle East and Central Asia--the
economic and military burden, the erosion of Turkey's Euro-
pean orientation, the reentry into the dangerous politics of
the Middle East--defeated Ozal's governing Motherland party
and brought the Social Democratic party, with Suleyman
Demirel as prime minister, to power.(63)

Demirel's policies seem to reflect the current Turkish
foreign policy consensus. He is interested in strengthening
Ankara's economic ties with the Central Asian republics and
seems to envision Turkey as the democratic, secular, free-
market-oriented "Shining City on the Hill" of the Moslem
world. During his recent visit to Washington, he tried to
downplay the notion of a spreading Islamic menace and re-
jected the idea that Ankara would play a pro-American
political-military role in Central Asia. He made it clear
that he is determined not to be perceived as "an American
poodle."(64)

Despite the setbacks of recent years, Ankara still
hopes that Turkey will eventually be invited to join the
European Community. Hence, Turkish policymakers are con-
cerned that the limited prestige Turkey gained in Washington
and the West as a result of Ankara's involvement in the Gulf
War is being outweighed by the possibility of military en-
tanglement with Iraq and Kurdish groups. Along with the
unresolved Cyprus problem, those difficulties complicate
ankara's ties with the community.

In addition, Turkey could be drawn into regional con-
flicts, such as that between Christian Armenia and Azerbai-
jan. And certainly Turkey would gain no benefit by creating
tensions with Iran. "Turkey is determined to keep good
relations with Iran and knows its own economic limitations
in meeting the expectations of its Central Asian cousins,"
insisted one Turkish official.(65)

Like those of Iran, Turkey's ties to the ethnic and
religious mosaic of Central Asia and the Caucacus could
create long-term problems. Indeed, the continued bloodshed
in the Caucacus has demonstrated Turkey's limited ability to
shape events in the region and highlighted the costs that
efforts to do so involve.

The Myth of a Central Asian Islamic Bloc

Developments in Central Asia suggest that the region is
not turning into a Tehran-run Islamic monolith against which
Ankara should be established as a bastion. Instead, Central
Asia is reemerging as the geopolitical and economic chess
board it was during the 19th century--a chessboard on which
regional and external powers vie for the traditional prizes
of access to markets and natural resources as well as polit-
ical influence.

However, that rivalry has more of the flavor of a bal-
ance-of-power game and trade competition than of the kind of
religious military struggle that Washington initially envi-
sioned. The model that Washington should use as it studies
the future of the Central Asia region, as well as that of
the emerging new Middle East, is not that of a new Moslem
empire but that of a multinational and multiethnic mosaic,
in which political, military, and economic cooperation will
coexist with chaotic ethnic and religious rivalries, not
necessarily between Christians and Moslems and certainly not
as a result of religious subversion by one player, such as
Iran.

Limits to U.S. Influence

With Russia ceasing to regard the region as a center
for global political and ideological competition with the
West, Washington, while attempting to penetrate the large
markets of Central Asia, should remain on the sidelines of
the political changes and the regional competition that can
be expected to develop, not try to pick the winners or
losers. Washington, after opening diplomatic missions and
establishing trade ties with the new Central Asian repub-
lics, can only hope that Turkey's democratic free-market
model will be imitated.

The United States should also encourage a stable bal-
ance of power as well as the cooperative economic systems
that are already emerging. The administration should under-
stand that any time it attempts to intervene directly or
indirectly through surrogates it creates disincentives for
the creation of a balance of power.

Any efforts to mediate local conflicts such as the one
over Nagorno-Karabakh have little chance of succeeding; any
mediation should be left to regional powers, such as Russia,
Turkey, or even Iran, all of whom have a major stake in the
outcome of that and other potential regional conflicts.

The United States should also reject all proposals for
a grand Marshall Plan for Central Asia. Economically back-
ward when they were brought into the Soviet empire, the
Central Asian republics enjoyed some limited modernization.
However, those republics became a net burden on Moscow's
budget. As the Soviet government collapsed, their living
standards fell more rapidly than those of the Slavic states.
The republics of Central Asian are now dependent on Russia
and the other more industrialized regions of the former
Soviet Union for manufactured goods.

The idea that Washington could replace Moscow as the
region's source of financial aid makes no economic or polit-
ical sense. Currently, most of the governments of the newly
independent states of Central Asia are in the hands of for-
mer communist officials who have very little understanding
of and experience with free-market economics. Washington
should refrain from creating expectations that it will de-
liver economic prosperity.

Unfortunately, any inclination to adopt a low-key Amer-
ican approach to the region could easily be undermined by an
exaggerated fear of Islam that continues to distort Washing-
ton's view of the Central Asian republics' ethnic, cultural,
and historical realities. Fear of the Islamic bogeyman has
already resulted in the destructive idea of turning Turkey
into an anti-Iranian pillar and led to an equally dangerous
American policy in North Africa.

Algeria: Joining the Jackals

Many analysts used terms like "irony" and "paradox" in
referring to the Bush administration's decision to support
the military takeover and cancellation of democratic elec-
tions in Algeria in January 1992. At a time when Washington
was calling for the establishment of a new world order and
the spread of democracy and free-market economies, the Bush
administration embraced a Marxist military dictatorship.

While the French government, whose stakes in the out-
come of the elections were higher, remained initially silent
when the Algerian army stepped in to cancel the election
that would probably have brought to power the Islamic Salva-
tion Front (FIS), Washington was quick to describe the move
as in accordance with the Algerian constitution. A day
later the State Department backpedaled and said it had "no
opinion" on the army's action.(66) That reaction stands in
stark contrast to Washington's angry reaction to the recent
Haitian military coup that overthrew a populist, socialist-
oriented president.

U.S. Support for Democracy: The Middle East Exception

The discrepancy between the Bush administration's glob-
al democracy rhetoric and its reaction to the events in
Algeria may have confused some observers, but Washington's
response was consist with long-standing U.S. strategy. The
same approach led to the 1953 U.S. intervention in Iran,
which led to the ouster of a democratically elected leader
and the restoration of the shah; the 1957 American pressure
on King Hussein to abolish a popularly elected regime in
Jordan; and the current U.S. support for the Arab monarchies
of the gulf.

Indeed, the Bush administration's response to the Alge-
rian coup is only the most recent manifestation of a policy
that subordinates the political will of Middle Eastern popu-
lations to the preservation of a profoundly undemocratic
status quo. In the name of combating the elusive threat of
Islamic fundamentalism, which has emerged as one of the most
important engines of change in the region, the United States
allies itself with some of the most anti-democratic forces
there.

The administration finds it convenient to promote elec-
tions from Moscow to Nicaragua to Kampuchea to Kenya--even
though in many cases the democratic process strengthens or
brings to power such unsavory players as the Pol Pot murder-
ers of Kampuchea and pseudodemocratic groups in sub-Saharan
Africa.

However, when it comes to free elections in the Moslem
Middle East--Algeria being the most dramatic example--offi-
cials in Washington suddenly begin to lament the "dilemmas"
and "Hobson's choices" they would face if political freedom
were to sweep the region. As Gerald F. Seib argues, "Democ-
racy could produce some messy problems for the United States
and its friends."(67) Furthermore, suggests Jim Hoagland,
democratic practices there might bring "anti-democratic
forces to the threshold of power."(68)

Though the Bush administration intrudes on every aspect
of internal Iraqi affairs, it is reluctant to demand inter-
nationally supervised elections in Algeria. Despite the
administration's and Congress's vocal denunciations of human
rights abuses, including massacres of demonstrators in the
streets of Beijing, no displeasure is expressed when the
regimes in Algeria and Tunisia take similar, if not harsher,
steps against their citizens. Instead, those demonstrators
are demonized as "fundamentalists" and "radicals" who sup-
posedly deserve such treatment.

Washington's concern about the rise of democracy in the
Middle East stems from the fear that free elections in Iraq,
the Arab gulf states, Jordan, and North Africa will threaten
the Arab regimes that help maintain strategic interests of
the United States and its access to oil in the region as
well as endanger American support for Israel.

The events in Algeria were quite understandable. After
close to two decades of bureaucratic mismanagement, politi-
cal repression, and corruption by the governing National
Front (FLN), Algeria was saddled with more than $25 billion
in foreign debt, and nearly 30 percent of its population was
unemployed. Meanwhile, members of the elite, who continued
to mouth slogans about egalitarianism, socialism, and Arab
nationalism, were perpetuating their own privileges, enjoy-
ing such benefits as tax-free imports, preferential housing,
and special rights to travel.(69)

The socialist leadership refused to sell its govern-
ment-controlled industries and continued to impose heavy
restrictions on foreign investment. In addition, worldwide
recession had been depressing hard-currency earnings of
Algerian tourism and petroleum exports, which magnified the
economic crisis and increased unemployment.

The economic problems, including a rise in prices, led
in 1988 to bloody riots, some led by Islamic fundamentalist
leaders, that spread through Algeria. Soldiers gunned down
hundreds of unarmed civilians. The crisis resulted in the
decision by the FLN government, controlled by elderly so-
cialist military men led by President Chadli Benjedid, to
begin ambitious political reforms, including promising to
legalize opposition parties and to end the political monopo-
ly of the FLN. That decision was also spurred by the col-
lapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and subtle
pressure from Paris.

However, years of authoritarian rule and the emigration
of many Western-educated technocrats and intellectuals to
Europe had left Algeria with no alternative political out-
lets for expression and organization. As was the case in
other parts of the Moslem World (and for that matter in
Eastern Europe under communist rule), traditional and reli-
gious institutions emerged as important centers of political
opposition, especially for the majority of poor and unedu-
cated Algerians. By 1991 the FIS controlled 8,000 of
Algeria's 10,000 mosques whose five daily prayers provided
40,000 daily relays for its views, which traveled by fax,
word of mouth, telephone, and cassette. Moreover, during
election campaigns the party was able to present a well-
educated field of high-quality candidates.

"Islam has always been a key unifying factor among the
Maghreb countries of North Africa," according to analyst
Allan Thompson, who added that it "now is a potent political
force as well--not because Arabs in those states want to
live in Islamic republics like Iran, but because the exist-
ing political order has failed them."(70)

Islam in Algeria, as in other parts of the Middle East,
has often thrived on the martyrdom of political oppression.
One reporter noted, "When populations are fed up with a
variety of elitist single-party authoritarian structures
over many decades, it's not surprising that Islam should
serve as a powerful vehicle of protest."(71) Although the
democratic process launched by the government unleashed
close to 60 parties and political associations, only the FIS
was able to mobilize massive public support and translate it
into election victories. It won 55 percent of the posts
that were filled by gubernatorial and local elections in May
1990, which gave it control of everything from street sweep-
ing to voter registration. That victory was followed by
attempts to gerrymander constituency boundaries to favor the
FLN. Those attempts led to new violent confrontations
between the government and supporters of the FIS, including
the jailing of a prominent FIS leader, Abbasi Madani.

However, attempts to repress the FIS only increased its
popularity, and it scored a major victory in the first round
of parliamentary elections on December 26, 1991, by winning
3 million votes (5 million other voters split their ballots
among 20 parties), which made it almost certain that it
would win a majority of the votes in the second round. That
would have given the FIS a powerful claim to the right to
form a government and also an excellent chance of winning
the Algerian presidential election. Concern about that
possibility led to the military intervention in January and
to the cancellation of the runoff vote. The military also
ousted President Benjedid, who apparently was willing to
accept an FIS victory; postponed the elections indefinitely;
declared a state of emergency; and imposed a military-
controlled High Security Council on the country.(72)

Western Democratic Hypocrisy

Those moves were explicitly backed by most of the rul-
ers in the Middle East, including the military rulers of
Tunisia and Libya, who face similar opposition from Islamic
fundamentalist forces, and at least implicitly by France and
the United States. "By neither criticizing nor approving
the Algerian army's action, Western countries cloak their
real attitude--that democracy is fine, up to a certain
point--in necessary ambiguity," noted Jim Hoagland.(73)

American intellectuals--including many who advocate a
Wilsonian global democracy crusade--exhibit a peculiar lack
of enthusiasm for democratic objectives when it comes to the
Middle East. There, to secure American hegemonic power,
they typically support a "realist" approach that includes a
U.S. military alliance with, and support for, authoritarian
Arab regimes. When U.S. policies incite popular demand for
change and reform, the neoconservatives solve their cogni-
tive dissonance by proclaiming that the demonstrators in the
streets represent the forces of reaction, the Green Peril,
and that the spread of democracy would be served by contain-
ing that threat.(74)

The events in Algeria highlight the weakness of the
global democracy crusade and suggest that it might be noth-
ing more than a way to rationalize, in the eyes of Americans
and international opinion makers, policies that are really
based on cold, calculated realpolitik considerations. To
put it another way, behind the mask of the American global
missionary is the American global policeman.

Washington's approach means that the United States ends
up backing ruling authoritarian elites and thereby incurring
a backlash from popular opposition forces that resent its
interventionist policies. Those policies inherently erode
America's power as a role model. The search for imaginary
Jeffersonian democrats ends up as a search for enemies, and
the Islamic fundamentalists are the latest candidates.

Islam and Democracy

The sense of confusion and arrogance that lies at the
root of the global democracy paradigm was exposed by the
U.S. reaction to the events in Algeria. The United States
could have pursued a detached policy toward Algeria, where
U.S. interests could have been affected only minimally, and
could have encouraged France and the southern European
states to take the lead. Washington could have recognized
the complexity of the situation, which does not involve just
good guys vs. bad guys, and welcomed the gradual moves to-
ward political freedom. Instead, the application of the
Green Peril frame resulted in a destructive knee-jerk reac-
tion.

U.S. policies also reflected the fallacies behind the
Islamic fundamentalist scare and America's image of politi-
cal Islam as a monolithic anti-Western movement that will
return the Middle East to the dark ages. Islamic fundamen-
talism, which serves as an umbrella for many variants of a
number of political ideologies, has in recent years eroded
the power of centralized and authoritarian political systems
in the Middle East. According to Graham E. Fuller, it is a
"movement that is both historically inevitable and politi-
cally `tamable,'" and "over the long run it even represents
ultimate political progress toward greater democracy and
popular government."(75)

Some aspects of the FIS understandably concern the
United States and other Western countries. Many of the
leaders are devout Moslems who seek an Iranian-style Islamic
republic, and the party's program calls for the establish-
ment of Shari'a--the rule of Islamic law. Strictly inter-
preted, that would require the complete segregation of the
sexes outside the home; the banning of alcohol and music in
public; and the introduction of stoning, flogging, and ampu-
tation as legal punishments. The possibility of the FIS's
coming to power has therefore raised fears among secular
Algerians, especially among educated and professional
women.(76)

However, behind the slogans and the rhetoric of the FIS
lies a more pragmatic approach. Many of the FIS leaders,
who are more Westernized than the Iranian ayatollahs, actu-
ally have marketable skills. One of the party's leaders,
Abdel Kader Hachani, who is now in jail, was an engineer for
the same state oil company that the current prime minister,
Sid Ahmed Ghozali, used to manage. Hachani represents a
different breed of mullah. He is 35 years old, the son of a
middle-class businessman, and fluent in French and English
although in public he uses only English.(77)

Hachani and many of the other FIS leaders, unlike the
Iranian ayatollahs, do not oppose "Western devils." They
advocate deregulation of public corporations, lowering
taxes, and freeing independent small businesses from state
control.

Even the Wall Street Journal had to acknowledge that
"some of the FIS ideas, such as support for a more open
economy, could benefit the country if actually implemented
by an Islamic government."(78) (Ironically, the most militant
and violent of the Islamic groups are the so-called Afghans,
Algerians who were trained in Peshawar to fight the Soviet
army in Afghanistan through a CIA-funded program.)(79)

Constraints on Fundamentalist Excesses

More important, the FIS leaders who would have come to
power through democratic elections could not have overlooked
the fact that many of those who voted for Islam did so out
of spite--primarily to get rid of the FLN, not to establish
a theocracy in Algeria. The majority of the 26 million
Algerians, including those who supported the FIS, speak
French, watch French television, and read French newspapers.
Many Algerians have relatives among the 4 million or so
Algerians who live in France, Spain, and Italy and travel
back and forth to Algeria. Algeria is also economically
dependent on trade with and aid from France and other south-
ern European countries.

Therefore, any attempt by the FIS to impose a xenopho-
bic anti-Western theocracy on Algeria would have produced a
major backlash. The prospect of a fundamentalist regime,
which appeared imminent after the December vote, had already
awakened many of the 5 million Algerians who had not both-
ered to cast a vote in the first electoral round and brought
out hundreds of thousands of modern Algerians for mass ral-
lies. Some even speculated that, as a result of the growing
unity of secular Algerians, it was by no means certain the
FIS would emerge from the second round as powerful as the
military feared.

Hence, the combination of a strong presidency, military
support for the Algerian constitution, and resistance by a
large proportion of the population, including the large
Berber-speaking population, would have acted as a strong
check on Islamic radicalism even if the FIS had managed to
form a government. Moreover, "the chances are that elector-
al politics will profoundly moderate those absolutist ten-
dencies latent in almost any kind of religious fundamental-
ism."(80) For example, in the last Jordanian elections, the
fundamentalists had to temper their rhetoric on women's role
in society in order to make the gains in the polls that they
did.(81)

Those objective constraints would have strengthened the
hands of leaders like Hachani who were interested in
building up the FIS as a pragmatic and reformist political
movement that could succeed in transforming the economy and
creating a popular base of support for the party. Hachani
and his colleagues know that by advancing a dogmatic reli-
gious agenda they would severely tarnish their future elec-
toral prospects as well as those of other Islamic groups.

Once in power, the FIS, like any other political party,
would have been judged by its ability to "deliver the
goods," mainly economic opportunities for the growing number
of young citizens. Religion, as King Hassan of Morocco put
it, is after all not enough to run a country. "Had the
Algerian elections been allowed to proceed, we would have
seen [the FIS] at work," he said.(82)

Most of the Islamic groups that operate more or less
freely, and run candidates in elections, in the relatively
open systems of Egypt and Jordan or in the more democratic
systems of Turkey and Pakistan have successfully adapted to
the rules of the democratic game. Those who have resorted
to violence have suffered the consequences. Not only have
"Islamic intellectuals and activists tried to come to terms
with the democratic ideas and process," but to implement
their programs, in recent years Islamic movements in Egypt,
Jordan, Pakistan, Sudan, and Tunisia "have seen the utility
of working within the political system. In so doing, they
have successfully contested parliamentary seats and held
cabinet positions."(83)

Moreover, once they became part of the democratic pro-
cess, many of those groups moderated their positions in
order to expand their electoral base and be able to form
coalitions with secular groups. For example, in Egypt dur-
ing the 1984 election, the Muslim Brotherhood concluded an
alliance with the secular and liberal New World party and
won 12 seats. In 1987 the brotherhood formed an "Islamic
alliance" with the Socialist Labor party and the Liberal
party and increased its parliamentary strength to 32
seats.(84)

Without the romantic image of martyrdom, and lacking
any serious policy programs, Islamic parties have actually
begun to lose public support. For example, the militant
Moslem parties are a very marginal force in Turkish poli-
tics.

Recognizing the precarious position of the FIS, even
before its possible victory in the second round, some poli-
ticians proposed a power-sharing arrangement that would have
given the FIS control of the parliament and left Benjedid in
the presidency. "The idea was to avoid interfering with the
country's new democracy and at the same time to give the FIS
enough rope to prove itself incapable of coping with the
crippled economy."(85) What spoiled that plan and forced the
army's hand was a meeting between Benjedid and Hachani at
which the president agreed to purge some corrupt officers
and officials. That was too much for the old FLN politi-
cians and military people to swallow.

"By canceling the elections, the military has invited
Algerians to settle their differences in the streets," sug-
gested the Wall Street Journal.(86) The country is gradually
moving toward civil war with potentially tragic consequences
in Algeria itself and serious repercussions in Europe, espe-
cially in France where 800,000 Algerian immigrants live. It
is tragic that Washington has endorsed the strategy of re-
pression.-

Conclusion: Is Political Islam a Threat?

There is no easy answer to the question of whether
Islam and democracy are compatible. As John L. Esposito and
James P. Piscatori put it, "History has shown that nations
and religious traditions are capable of having multiple and
major ideological interpretations or reorientations."(87) The
transformation of European principalities, whose rule was
justified by divine right, into modern Western democratic
states was accompanied by religious reform. Christian tra-
dition, which once supported political absolutism, was rein-
terpreted to accept the democratic ideal.

Islam also lends itself to various interpretations and
has been used to support democracy, dictatorship, republi-
canism, and monarchy. Some leaders of Islamic movements
have adopted a negative attitude toward democracy as an
expression of their rejection of European colonial influence
and, more recently, of U.S. intervention in the Middle East.

Islamic fundamentalism should not be considered "a
disease that spreads willy-nilly to infect whole popula-
tions." Like Protestant fundamentalism, argues David Igna-
tius, it is a "religious response to the confusion and con-
tradictions of the modern world."(88) It is not inconceivable
that the new Islamic force will play the same constructive
political role that the Protestant reformation played in
Europe.

In most Middle Eastern countries, including Algeria and
Iran, Islamic fundamentalism is already sweeping away the
corrupt old political order of the Arab world. Indeed,
"support for the fundamentalists in Algeria, as in Iran, has
come in part from the bazaar, from the merchants and small
businessmen who have been ignited by the statist regime."(89)

One question that troubles many analysts is whether the
Islamic movement will tolerate diversity when in power or
try to impose an intolerant monolithic order on society.
The record of the Islamic experiments in Iran, Pakistan, and
Sudan is mixed. Those governments have used power to dis-
criminate against minorities and women and to repress dis-
sidents. But their record has not been worse--and in some
cases it has been better--than that of secular regimes or
more traditional monarchies.

"Based on the record thus far," wrote Esposito and
Piscatori, "one can expect that where Islamic movements come
to power in the Middle East, they will have problems similar
to those of secular governments in the region." That is
especially true where democratic institutions are weak and
political pluralism and human rights remain sources of ten-
sion and conflict.(90)

The danger for the Western nations, in particular the
United States, is that misperceptions will cloud their judg-
ment of and produce counterproductive policies toward Islam
and the Middle East. Instead of viewing Islam as a mono-
lithic force, Western analysts and policymakers should
recognize that it is a diverse civilization, divided along
cultural, ideological, religious, ethnic, and national
lines. Even the term "Islamic fundamentalism" should per-
haps be modified to reflect the different movements and
groups that are lumped into that category.

Moreover, neither Islam nor Islamic fundamentalism is
by definition "anti-Western." As noted, the anti-American
attitudes of Islamic groups and movements in the Middle East
are not directed against Christianity or Western civiliza-
tion per se. They are instead a reaction to U.S. policies,
especially Washington's support for authoritarian regimes
and the long history of U.S. military intervention.

American policies that stem from political, economic,
and military interests are bound to lead to more incidents
that pit the United States against the forces of political
and economic change in the Middle East. Political players
in both the United States and the Middle East fan the fear
of the Green Peril as a way of maintaining public support
for policies that serve their self-interest. The interests
of the iron triangles are, however, not necessarily synony-
mous with those of the American nation.

Although it is not in America's interest to launch a
crusade for democracy, neither is it in her interest to be
perceived as the guarantor of the status quo and the major
obstacle to reform. Now that the Cold War is over, Washing-
ton should not be searching for a new enemy; instead, it
should view regional conflicts with detachment, realizing
that they will rarely pose a danger to America's security.

Notes

(1) "Fear of Fundies," The Economist, February 15, 1992,
pp. 4546.

(2) "This Week with David Brinkley," ABC News, December 29,
1991, transcript prepared by Graphic Journal, p. 6.

(3) Douglas E. Streusand, "Abraham's Other Children: Is
Islam an Enemy of the West?" Policy Review 50 (Fall 1989).
See also exchange of letters titled "Is Islamic Fundamental-
ism a New Red Scare?" New York Times, January 29, 1992.

(4) Jim Hoagland, "Washington's Algerian Dilemma," Washing
ton Post, February 6, 1992.

(5) Amos Perlmutter, "Wishful Thinking about Islamic Funda
mentalism," Washington Post, January 19, 1992.

(6) Brian Duffy et al., "Saddam: The Most Dangerous Man in
the World," U.S. News &amp; World Report, June 4, 1990,
pp. 38-51.

(7) See "Gulf War Coverage: A One Note Chorus," Extra 4, no.
3 (May 1991).

(8) David Ignatius, "Islam in the West's Sights: The Wrong
Crusade?" Outlook Section, Washington Post, March 8, 1992.

(9) Thomas L. Friedman, "U.S. to Counter Iran in Central
Asia," New York Times, February 6, 1992; Thomas L. Friedman,
"Baker's Trip to Nations Unready for Independence," February
16, 1992; and Robert S. Greenberger, "Baker Is Wooing Cen
tral Asian Republics, Wall Street Journal, February 14,
1992.

(10) The diplomat, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for
African Affairs Robert Houdek, warned the Sudanese that they
would face "grave" consequences if an international terror
ist act could be traced to Sudan. See Jane Perlez, "Sudan
Is Seen as Safe Base for Mideast Terror Groups," New York
Times, January 26, 1992.

(11) Arnold Beichman, "Iran's Covetous Glances," Washington
Times, February 28, 1992.

(12) Ibid.

(13) See, for example, Barbara Crossette, "U.S. Aide Calls
Muslim Militants Big Concern," New York Times, January 1,
1992; David Ignatius, "U.S. Fears Sudan Becoming Terrorists'
'New Lebanon,'" Washington Post, January 31, 1992; Perlez,
"Sudan Seen as Safe Base for Mideast Terror Groups"; and
Robert S. Greenberger, "Islamic Fundamentalism's Rise in
Sudan Sparks Concern over Movement's Spread," Wall Street
Journal, March 16, 1992; Jennifer Parmelee, "Sudan Denies
'Khartoum-Tehran Axis' to Promote Islamic Regimes in Afri
ca," Washington Post, March 12, 1992; John J. Fialka, "For
mer Soviet Republics of South-Central Asia Have Nuclear
Arms, Links with Volatile Lands," Wall Street Journal, Octo
ber 9, 1991; Craig Forman, "Islamic Resurgence Sweeps Soviet
South," Wall Street Journal, October 9, 1991; Rowland Evans
and Robert Novak, "Ignoring Tehran's Threat," Washington
Post, March 2, 1992; Elaine Sciolino, "Iraqis Could Pose a
Threat Soon, CIA Chief Says," New York Times, January 16,
1992; and Gerald F. Seib, "The New Order: Iran Is Re-emerg
ing as a Mideast Power as Iraqi Threat Fades," Wall Street
Journal, March 18, 1992.

(14) Crossette, "U.S. Aide Calls Muslim Militants Big Con
cern."

(15) See Edward A. Gargan, "The Chastened Pakistanis: Peace
with U.S. Is Aim," New York Times, February 19, 1992; and M.
M. Ali, "Soviet Empire's Disintegration Alters the Face of
Asia and the Middle East," Washington Report on Middle East
Affairs 10, no. 8 (March 1992): 49-50.

(16) Colin Rubenstein, Address before the Asian Studies Cen
ter, Heritage Foundation, February 10, 1992. Rubenstein is
a lecturer at Monash University, Australia, and the editor
of the Australia-Israel Review.

(17) Mohammad Mohaddesin, director of international relations
of the People's Mojahedin of Iran in a briefing at the Cato
Institute, March 3, 1992.

(18) Edward A. Gargan, "Afghan President Says U.S. Should See
Him as Ally against Militant Islam," New York Times, March
10, 1992.

(19) Gargan, "The Chastened Pakistanis." On Pakistani strat

egy, also see Edward A. Gargan, "Fiscal Political Forces
Move Pakistan to Seek Afghan Peace," New York Times, Febru
ary 16, 1992; Edward A. Gargan, "Islam Challenges Pakistan
Economy," New York Times, February 23, 1992; and Steve Coll,
"Pakistan Struggles to Incorporate Both Muslim, Western
Outlooks," Washington Post, February 18, 1992.

(20) A. M. Ali, "Soviet Empire's Disintegration Alters the
Face of Asia and the Middle East"; and Edward A. Gargan,
"Airlifted Hindu Nationalists Fly India's Flag in Kashmir,"
New York Times, January 27, 1992.

(21) See Leon T. Hadar, Quagmire: America in the Middle East
(Washington: Cato Institute, 1992).

(22) Daniel Doron, "The Mideast's Real Troubles Aren't Arab
Israeli," Wall Street Journal, October 3, 1991. Also see
Joel Himmelfarb, "Islamic Republics: Danger for Israel,"
Near East Report, January 27, 1992, for an example of
AIPAC's efforts to use the Islamic threat in the Moslem
republics to gain sympathy for Israel.

(23) Doron, "The Mideast's Real Troubles Aren't Arab-Israe
li."

(24) Jane Perlez, "A Fundamentalist Finds a Fulcrum in Su
dan," New York Times, January 29, 1992.

(25) Parmelee, "Sudan Denies 'KhartoumTehran Axis' to Pro
mote Islamic Regimes in Africa."

(26) Ibid.

(27) Tom Post and Melinda Liu, "The Great Game, Chapter Two,"
Newsweek, February 3, 1992, p. 29. On Saudi concern about
the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and Iran, see Youssef M.
Ibrahim, "The Saudis Are Fearful, Too, As Islam's Militant
Tide Rises," New York Times, December 31, 1991.

(28) Parmelee, "Sudan Denies 'Khartoum-Tehran Axis' to Pro
mote Islamic Regimes in Africa."

(29) See, for example, Gerald F. Seib, "Saudis, Shedding
Usual Caution, Play Bold Role in Peace Talks, Hope to Win
Over U.S. Critics," Wall Street Journal, November 11, 1991.

(30) On the history and political system of Saudi Arabia, see
Robert Lacey, The Kingdom: Arabia and the House of Saud (New
York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1981).

(31) Added Dawisha, "The United States in the Middle East:
The Gulf War and Its Aftermath," Current History 91, no. 561
(January 1992): 4.

(32) On Saudi overtures to the American Jewish community, see
"The Jewish World," in Long Island Jewish World 20, no. 43
(November 22, 1991): 2; and "Jews and Saudis Hold First
Talks in Saudi Arabia," New York Times, January 22, 1992.

(33) Ibrahim, "The Saudis Are Fearful, Too."

(34) Laurie Mylroie, "Led Astray by the Saudis in Iraq," Wall
Street Journal, April 10, 1991, p. A22.

(35) Indeed, in a March interview with a Kuwaiti newspaper,
King Fahd made it clear that his reforms are not going to
produce a democratic system in the country." The system of
free elections is not part of Islamic ideology," he stated.
"Democracies in the West might be good in those countries,
but this [does not] suit all the people of the world."
Quoted in "No Democracy for Saudis," Near East Report, April
20, 1992, p. 1.

(36) Ezra Olman, "Saudi Rights Abuses Increase," Near East
Report, March 2, 1992.

(37) Moshe Efrat and Jacob Bercovitch, Superpowers and Client
States in the Middle East (New York: Routledge, 1991),
p. 51.

(38) Patrick E. Tyler, "Hostage Issue: Test for Iran's Presi
dent," New York Times, September 13, 1991.

(39) Eric Hooglund, "Iranian Populism and Political Change in
the Gulf," Middle East Report 174 (January-February 1992):
20.

(40) On liberalization efforts, see Elaine Sciolino, "Iran's
Urge to Prosper Overtaking Its Islamic Zeal," Week in Re
view, New York Times, June 2, 1991; Youssef Ibrahim, "Iran
Gingerly Tries a Bit of Pragmatism," Week in Review, New
York Times, June 9, 1991; and Katayon Ghazi, "Iran Calls on
Expatriate Investors to Return," New York Times, June 2,
1991.

(41) Geraldine Brooks, "Veiled Capitalists: The New Revolu
tion in Iran Is Taking Place on an Economic Front," Wall
Street Journal, September 16, 1991.

(42) On Iran's diplomatic overtures during and after the gulf
crisis, see Shahrough Akhavi, "Iran's Comeback in the Gulf,"
New York Times, March 10, 1991; and "An Exclusive Interview
with Dr. Ali Akbar Velayati," Middle East Insight 7, no. 5
(1991): 6-9.

(43) Alan Cowell, "Tehran Courting Western Europe," New York
Times, May 7, 1991.

(44) Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, "The New Persian Gulf Security
Arrangement and the Relevant Factors," Middle East Insight
8, no. 1 (July/August 1991): 2224. For the Iranian posi
tion, see also "Interview with Kamal Kharrazi, Iranian Am
bassador to the U.N.," Middle East Insight 8, no. 3
(January/February 1992): 6-9.

(45) Youssef M. Ibrahim, "Iran's Leaders Ask Wide Cooperation
and Ties to West, Also Call for Gulf Amity," New York Times,
May 28, 1991.

(46) Post and Liu, p. 29.

(47) Mahallati, "The New Persian Gulf Security Arrangement
and the Relevant Factors," p. 23.

(48) Peter Ford, "Egyptians Exert Leverage on Gulf Security
Issues," Christian Science Monitor, May 24, 1991.

(49) Quoted in The Soref Symposium: American Strategy after
the Gulf War (Washington: Washington Institute for Near East
Policy, 1991), p. 53.

(50) Caryle Murphy, "U.S-Iranian Ties Mending," Washington
Post, April 20, 1992.

(51) Patrick Clawson, "Iran's Rafsanjani, the New Mideast
'Darling,'" Wall Street Journal, April 22, 1992.

(52) Avner Yaniv, "The End of Moderate Facade," Ha'aretz,
February 16, 1992.

(53) Most reports in the American press such as William
Drozdiak, "Iran and Turkey Vie for Political, Economic In
fluence in Soviet Muslim States," Washington Post, November
24, 1991, and David Hoffman, "Power Competition in Central
Asia," Washington Post, February 14, 1992, have focused on
the competitive nature of the two nations' involvement in
the region, while totally ignoring their common interests
there. In many ways, the competitive-cooperative relations
of Iran and Turkey in Central Asia resemble those of Germany
and Russia in Eastern Europe.

(54) Post and Liu, p. 29.

(55) On the Iraqi-Shi'ite reaction, see Elaine Sciolino, The
Outlaw State: Saddam Hussein's Quest for Power and the Gulf
Crisis (New York: John Wiley &amp; Sons, 1991), pp. 79-121.

(56) Shireen Hunter, "The PostWar Middle East: The Flaws in
U.S. Thinking," Middle East International 393 (February 8,
1991): 23. On U.S. reaction to Iran's attempts to improve
ties and Washington's continued efforts to isolate Iran, see
also Elaine Sciolino, "U.S. Responds Coolly to Overture from
Iran," New York Times, May 29, 1991; and R. K. Ramazani,
"Future Security in the Persian Gulf: America's Role," Mid
dle East Insight 8, no. 1 (July/August 1991): 25-30. For an
example of the American perception of Iranian goals, see
David H. Halevy, "Tehran's New World Order? Iran's Schemes
in Iraq May Be the First Step toward a Fundamentalist Bloc,"
Outlook Section, Washington Post, March 24, 1991.

(57) On Ozal's policies, see also "Star of Islam: A Survey of
Turkey," The Economist, December 15, 1991. On Turkey's
postGulf War dilemmas, see Thomas Goltz, "Dealing Turkey
into the Power Game," Washington Post, September 23, 1990;
Philip Revizin, "Morning After: Turkey Waits in Vain for the
Big Payoff from Gulf War Stance," Wall Street Journal, April
17, 1991; Clyde Haberman, "Turks Claim Some of Victors'
Spoils," New York Times, March 13, 1991; Hugh Pope,
"Turkey's Raids on Kurdish Rebels Raise Fears Civil War May
Erupt," Wall Street Journal, September 3, 1991; and "The
Forgotten Ally," Review &amp; Outlook, Wall Street Journal,
January 5, 1991.

(58) Marc Fisher, "Bonn Condemns Turkey for Attack on Kurds,"
Washington Post, March 27, 1992.

(59) Pope, "Wooing the Republics."

(60) For a more balanced analysis of the role of Islam in
Central Asia, see Francis X. Clines, "Islamic Militancy
along Russia's Rim Is Less Than a Sure Bet," New York Times,
February 9, 1992; and J. Robinson West, "A New Middle East,"
Washington Post, December 31, 1991.

(61) Post and Liu, p. 29.

(62) Pope, "Wooing Central Asia," p. 13.

(63) Chris Hedges, "Turkish Election Results May Shift Basic
Policies," New York Times, November 18, 1991; and Scott B.
MacDonald, "Turkey's 1991 Elections: Condemned to Relive the
Past," Middle East Insight 8, no. 3 (January/February 1992):
25-30.

(64) Lally Weymouth, "Turkey's New Leader Keeps His Dis
tance," Washington Post, February 21, 1992.

(65) Pope, "Wooing Central Asia," p. 13.

(66) Quoted in Hoagland, "Washington's Algerian Dilemma."

(67) Gerald F. Seib, "U.S. Push for Democracy Doesn't Seem to
Extend to Nations of the Middle East," Wall Street Journal,
March 11, 1992. On U.S. opposition to the democratic drive
in the region, including opposition to Shi'ite self-determi
nation in Iraq, see Thomas L. Friedman, "A New U.S. Problem:
Freely Elected Tyrants," New York Times, January 12, 1992;
Christopher Hitchens, "Washington Watch: Tilting Democracy,"
Middle East Report 174, vol. 22, no. 1, (January/February
1992):33-34; Tony Horwitz, "Forgotten Rebels: After Heeding
Calls to Turn on Saddam, Shi'ites Feel Betrayed," Wall
Street Journal, December 26, 1991; and Daniel Pipes, "Let
the Iraqis Get Rid of Saddam," Washington Post, December 22,
1991.

(68) Hoagland, "Washington's Algerian Dilemma."

(69) See Youssef M. Ibrahim, "Algerians, Angry with the
Past, Divide over Their Future," Week in Review, New York
Times, January 19, 1992.

(70) Allan Thompson, "Fundamental Politics," Toward Freedom,
February 1992, p. 3.

(71) Graham E. Fuller, "Islamic Fundamentalism: No Long-Term
Threat," Washington Post, January 13, 1992, and Hoagland,
"Washington's Algerian Dilemma."

(72) See Jonathan C. Randal, "Algerian Elections Canceled,"
Washington Post, January 13, 1992; Peter Waldman, "Algeria
Cancels Second Round of Elections," Wall Street Journal,
January 13, 1992; Youssef M. Ibrahim, "Algerian Leaders Form
New Council," Washington Post, January 15, 1992; Jonathan C.
Randal, "Algerian Regime Names New Ruling Council," Washing
ton Post, January 15, 1992.

(73) James Hoagland, "Washington's Algerian Dilemma." On the
French position, see Alan Riding, "France Voices Concern on
Algerian Situation," New York Times, January 14, 1992. On
U.S. policy toward Algeria and North Africa, see John P.
Entelis, "U.S.Maghreb Relations in a Democratic Age: The
Priority of Algeria," Middle East Insight 8, no. 3 (Janu
ary/February 1992): 31-35; and Fuller, "Islamic Fundamental
ism: No LongTerm Threat."

(74) See Amos Perlmutter, "Wishful Thinking about Islamic
Fundamentalism," Washington Post, January 19, 1992.

(75) Fuller, "Islamic Fundamentalism: No Long-Term Threat."

(76) See Youssef M. Ibrahim, "In Algeria, Clear Plans to Lay
Down Islamic Law," New York Times, December 31, 1991;
Youssef M. Ibrahim, "Islamic Plan for Algeria Is on Dis
play," New York Times, January 7, 1992; and Youssef M. Ibra
him, "Algiers Marchers Oppose Militants," New York Times,
January 3, 1992.

(77) Terence Wrong, "Mullah's Day," New Republic, February
17, 1992, p. 20.

(78) "Going Wrong in Algiers," editorial, Wall Street Jour
nal, January 14, 1992. For the anti-statist and pro-busi
ness orientation of the FIS, see Jill Smolowe, "The Funda
mentalists' Big Gain Is More a Protest against Socialist
Rule Than a Mandate for an Islamic Republic," Time, January
13, 1992. For an analysis of the militant Lebanese Shi'ites'
similar agenda, see Geraldine Brooks, "Changing Image: Radi
cal Islamic Groups in Lebanon Tone Down Anti-Western Fer
vor," Wall Street Journal, November 9, 1991.

(79) "Against Sin," The Economist, February 15, 1992, p. 46.

(80) Fuller, "Islamic Fundamentalism: No Long-Term Threat."
On the difference between the Iranian model and the Islamic
movement in Algeria, see Youssef M. Ibrahim, "Islam in Alge
ria: An Echo of Iran, but Not a Repeat," New York Times,
December 29, 1991.

(81) See "Squeezed," The Economist, May 1990, pp. 1218, on
the role of the fundamentalists in the democratic process in
Jordan. Unlike the Jordanian government, the Tunisian and
Algerian regimes have attempted to suppress Islamic groups.
See Jonathan C. Randal, "Tunisia Faces Renewed Threat from
Islamic Fundamentalists," Washington Post, January 11, 1992;
and Chris Hedges, "Tunisia Cracks Down Harder on Muslim
Militants," New York Times, January 29, 1992.

(82) Quoted in "Fear of Fundies," p. 45.

(83) John L. Esposito and James P. Piscatori, "Democratiza
tion and Islam," Middle East Journal 45, no. 3 (Summer
1991): 428.

(84) See Yahya Sadowski, "Egypt's Islamist Movement: A New
Political and Economic Force," Middle East Insight 5, no. 4
(November/December 1987): 40. On the role of Islamic funda
mentalism in Egyptian politics, see Chris Hedges, "Militant
Islam's Conquest Stops at Egypt's Border," New York Times,
January 6, 1992.

(85) Wrong, "Mullah's Day," p. 19.

(86) "Going Wrong in Algiers," Wall Street Journal. On the
impact of the new military regime's repressive measures, see
Youssef M. Ibrahim, "Algeria Militants Call for Uprising,"
New York Times, January 14, 1992; and Youssef M. Ibrahim,
"Algeria Arrests a Senior Islamic Leader," New York Times,
January 23, 1992.

(87) Esposito and Piscatori, "Democratization and Islam,"
p. 434.

(88) Ignatius, "Islam in the West's Sights: The Wrong Cru
sade."

(89) Ibid.

(90) Esposito and Piscatori, "Democratization and Islam,"
p. 40.

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