Stability and the scarecrow of Islamic rule

05/17/2011 11:21 By RAPHAEL ISRAELI
A twin fear underscores American and European foreign policy (if there is such a thing) regarding the Arab world: the concern for stability and a gripping anxiety that the current turmoil may lead to Islamic rule – wrongly termed by the chattering classes as “Islamist.” In other words, that control will be assumed by the Muslim Brotherhood or by one of its clones and affiliates that fall under the often misleading umbrella of “radical Islam.”

Former US president Ronald Reagan defied the “stability” of the seventy-year-old Soviet Regime and its allies in the Soviet Bloc, and had a strong hand in causing the demise of what he dubbed to be the “Empire of Evil.” Reagan realized that causing temporary instability was a necessary evil in tearing down evil regimes and insuring that a real stability of peace and freedom could endure in the long run.
Sadly, the list of regimes that promote long-term stability of the oppressive kind is long. It includes Saddam Hussein’s Iraq (30 years), the dynastic stability that the Alawite Assad family provided for 41 years in Syria, the military regimes established by deposed presidents Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, and the decades-long autocracies of Yemen (led by President Ali Abdullah Saleh) and Libya (led by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi).

Amazingly, for decades these oppressive but “stable” regimes were not questioned by the West. Only when they began teetering on the edge of perdition by their citizens’ own volition did the West begin to remind itself that they were undemocratic regimes all along and that the rebels, attributed with disturbing the “stable” status quo, should in fact be encouraged and reinforced.

But just when the West came to that realization, the specter of Islam reared its ugly head over the horizon, causing the West to collectively shudder. What if Mubarak, an authoritarian who was considered a solid and credible ally of yesteryear, was replaced by a Muslim Brotherhood-led government that was democratically elected – even though those elections might very well be the last? An Islamic government could shun the Americans and even replace its military aid with some from another power (Russia again, or perhaps from Iran whose capacities are gradually mounting)?

Such a prospect deeply frightens Israel, especially in light of the prospects vying for presidential candidacy in Egypt.more from JPost