Pushing regional reform
Political, economic and educational reforms in the Middle East must happen now, US Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Liz Cheney, told Khaled Dawoud in Washington
Liz Cheney
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At her office at the State Department, US Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, Liz Cheney, is busy hanging up front pages of newspapers which mark the fall of Baghdad to US forces on 9 April. "Hussein's Baghdad falls", reads one headline above the famous picture of the statue of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein being pulled down by a US tank surrounded by several hundred Iraqis. Like other members of the US administration, 36-year-old Cheney believes that the fall of the former Iraqi regime and "establishing Iraq as a stable, democratic and prosperous nation" are crucial for the rest of the region.
Liz, daughter of US Vice-President Dick Cheney who is known as a key hard-liner in the Bush administration together with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, has been supervising the implementation of the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), officially announced by Secretary of State Colin Powell in December. The aims of the initiative, which received an initial funding of $29 million in 2002 and $100 million for 2003, are to provide support for "economic, political, and educational reform efforts in the Middle East and champion opportunity for all people of the region, especially women and youth".
Critics of the MEPI in the Arab world, however, see this initiative as a means for imposing US-backed reforms in the region following the 11 September attacks in New York and Washington. However, the current US administration believes that without these reforms, the region would continue to produce "ideologies of hatred and violence". In addition to the MEPI, US President George Bush announced in May another plan to establish a joint Middle East Free Trade Zone by 2013.
Under the auspices of the MEPI, explained Cheney, the US administration provides funding for over 50 programmes, which include parliamentary training for new parliaments, technical assistance for elections, support for countries seeking to sign Free Trade Agreements with the United States and training for Arab journalists. They also provide support for programmes which aim to revise current teaching methods, replacing the current system of learning by rote with a more child- oriented system of learning.
Two major programmes happening in the next two months include a forum in Bahrain to be held from 15 to 17 September on judicial development across the Middle East, and a meeting in Qatar in October, which will bring together women from the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and Yemen for a week-long course on leadership and communication skills to promote the role of women in the political process. US Supreme Court Justice Sandra O'Connor will lead the US delegation at the judicial conference in Qatar, while Cherie Blair, wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, will lead the British delegation. Cheney said that Bahrain had also invited governments in the region to send three to four jurists, ministers of justice, chief justices and some non-governmental organisations (NGOs) "to emphasise the importance of an independent judicial system, how to select judges, how judges are trained and what kind of ethical standards should be applied". Also in October, she added, another meeting will be held in Qatar, specifically for women judges from across the Arab world to speak about the role of women and their experiences in the field of law.
Cheney said her department was also focussing on the Arab-American economic forum to be held in Detroit, Michigan at the end of September. Secretary Powell will take part in the meeting, "and we are looking forward to the opportunity to talking with folks from the region, government officials and business leaders about how we can continue to calibrate the partnership initiative to make sure that it is really supporting their needs".
On the economic front, the Partnership Initiative includes a micro lending programme, which will be expanded to become a pan- regional enterprise, and a venture capital fund, "so that we can help provide capital to young entrepreneurs and help to create jobs by giving people access to the capital they need to operate," Cheney told Al-Ahram Weekly.
All programmes included in the MEPI, Cheney emphasised, are based on consultations with the Arab governments involved, "and much of it, frankly, comes from requests by the governments".
However, the most controversial MEPI programme relates to educational reforms within the region. Several critics in the Arab world claim that the US is seeking to revamp the educational system simply for the purposes of removing educational material which Washington believes promotes incitement and hatred, particularly against Israel and Jews.
While not directly denying this charge, Cheney described the educational reforms as an attempt to promote tolerance in the region. "I think it is very important that kids learn tolerance from a very early age," she said.
Children as young as three years of age in the Occupied Territories and Israel, she explained, have stereotypical views of each other. "And yes, absolutely, I think that's wrong. I think that's really damaging to society if children at a very young age are learning hate."
There have been reports in the Arab press that the US is forcing Arab countries to change the school curricula, to which Cheney replied that reports of this type are produced simply to give a false impression of US endeavours. These reports, she said, are "meant to give people the impression that America is saying 'you must have this system because we're America.' But this is not what we're doing."
She added that, "we, as a government, have consistently said that tolerance is [of vital importance] and that the text books have got to get rid of incitement." Texts of this nature, she continued, waste young peoples' minds, and the Partnership Initiative is "about something bigger than this. We all want our kids to have as many opportunities as they can: for the kids in the Middle East to have these opportunities, school systems have to improve." The current system is not serving children's needs, and teaching tolerance is just a part of this, she said.
Cheney has toured most Arab countries to follow up on the implementation of MEPI programmes, and believes the entire world would benefit from a peaceful and stable region. "Peace is something that everybody is going to benefit from, and there is no US ulterior ... motive."
Despite the growth in anti-US sentiment in the region, particularly following the US occupation of Iraq, Cheney said that both Arab governments and NGOs had positive attitudes towards the MEPI. She conceded that a number of Arab NGOs announced that they would not cooperate with the initiative following Iraq's invasion. "If a group does not want to work with us, that's completely their decision, and we're only going to work with groups who feel comfortable working with us. There have been plenty, even in Egypt."
Critics in the Arab world maintain that crucial issues -- like the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the US occupation of Iraq -- must be resolved before political, economic or educational reforms can be introduced in the region. This argument is rejected by Cheney, who believes that the resolution of issues and the introduction of reforms can happen concurrently. "Both Iraq, and what happens between the Israelis and Palestinians, are critical in terms of what the future of the Middle East looks like." The establishment of a stable and prosperous Iraq will have a positive effect on the rest of the region, while an Iraq with open markets will be of both economic and political benefit to the entire Middle East, she argues. Israeli-Palestinian peace is also important, she continues, and the failure to achieve this will hold the region back. She concedes that the US must work in tandem with people in the region to achieve peace. Both the US and Middle Eastern governments, she believes, know that reform cannot wait. "You can't say, well we're going to work just on Iraq and just on the peace process, and we will talk about reform later." The demographics of the area, with 50 per cent of the population under the age of 20, mean rapid change is must. "You have to work now to open up economies and to create jobs," she said.
But one of the main reasons, says Cheney, for investors leaving the region -- including Arab investors -- is because of the legal situation. "If the countries in the region don't change their investment regimes, and don't establish court systems that investors can count on, and don't begin to eliminate red tape that goes along with investment, investors are still not going to come."
