The Peninsula On-line: Qatar's leading English Daily

Political Islam has US to thank (by RICHARD BEESTON)

WHEN Hamas leaders trace the roots of their electoral triumph they should spare a thought – or perhaps devote a prayer – to their nemesis President Bush, who more than anyone has made the march of political Islam a reality in the Middle East.

Thanks in no small measure to America’s efforts, groups previously marginalised in politics are now in the ascendancy from the Nile to the Tigris and beyond.

The strategy, adopted after the attacks on September 11, 2001, was supposed to give a voice to the disgruntled population of the region, many of whom had lived under various forms of dictatorship for a generation.

If the experiment was intended to encourage the growth of secular, moderate and pro-Western political movements, it has been an unmitigated failure. Instead, a new brand of Islamic democracy has taken root, with decidedly mixed results for the stability of the region.

The first major test was Turkey, one of the most secular states in the Islamic world, where the Islamist Justice and Development Party won a landslide victory in elections held in November 2002.

At the time its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was banned from standing because of a previous criminal conviction for reading an Islamic poem at a political rally.

Mr Erdogan, now the Prime Minister and favourite candidate for presidential elections next year, has since been regarded as an outstanding success. Last year he secured for Turkey membership talks to join the European Union.

The opposite reaction has greeted President Ahmadinejad, the outsider who stormed to victory in Iran last summer. While all parties taking part in the vote had Islamic roots, there had been hopes that this non-cleric would pursue a more pragmatic agenda. Instead he has hardened Iran’s policies, reversing agreements on the country’s controversial nuclear programme, threatening Israel and plunging the nation into a permanent state of crisis.

A similarly patchy record on democracy has emerged in the Arab world, where pan-Arab, secular politics is fast giving way to Islam as the dominant ideology.

Iraq remains the great unfinished experiment in this process, where a one-party secular dictatorship has been replaced by a chaotic multi-party democracy.

America’s hopes that moderate, pro-Western, secularists would emerge as the main new force in politics have been abandoned after December’s parliamentary elections for a permanent government. Instead, Islamic parties will dominate the new parliament and form the future government with active American encouragement.

In Egypt it was direct diplomatic pressure from Washington that allowed opposition groups to challenge President Mubarak’s grip on power. Once more, moderate political figures were roundly defeated in elections last year. Instead, the Muslim Brotherhood, which is closely linked to Hamas, has emerged as the only real opposition party.

Finally Lebanon, which held its first free vote last year after the withdrawal of Syrian forces, returned Hezbollah, the militant Islamic group, as the main opposition in parliament.

Certainly Hamas leaders can rest assured that they have joined a large and growing club.

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-THE TIMES

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