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 The
Middle East's Real Bane: Corruption
Slowing democracy’s progress…
[Michael
Rubin] 11/22/05
President
George W. Bush has made democratization a pillar of his administration's
strategy. "It is the policy of the United States to seek
and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions
in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending
tyranny," he declared in his January 20, 2005, inaugural
address.
Whether because
of Bush or not, democracy has progressed in the Greater Middle
East. Afghans and Iraqis marched to the polls after decades
without the right to vote. Palestinians and Egyptians, too,
have held contested elections after years of stilted referendums
and closed campaigns. Following the assassination of former
Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the Lebanese banded together
to advance democracy and reform.
Progress is shaky, however, its permanence far from assured.
While both Western and Arab media juxtapose bombings with democratization,
the true threat to both political reform and stability in the
Middle East is not terrorism, but corruption; and across the
region, the problem is worsening.
Take the case of the Iraqi Kurds. Long championed as a model
of liberalization, they are becoming a regional embarrassment.
Rather than pursue democracy, the Iraqi Kurdish leadership is
more consumed with self-enrichment. Following Iraq's defeat in
1991, the Kurds rose in rebellion against Saddam Hussein. The
leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party, Massoud Barzani, returned
to Iraqi Kurdistan with little but respect for his family name.
Fourteen years later, his personal worth is estimated at close
to $2 billion. Corruption and nepotism are rife. No foreign businessman
can strike a deal in his region without entering into partnership
with Barzani or a favored relative. Human rights workers in Irbil
say they have met Kurds imprisoned for failing to pay kickbacks.
Across the region, the Barzani family conflates government, party,
and personal property. Local militias uphold not the rule of
law, but rather serve as Barzani's enforcers. The Kurdish Parliament,
meanwhile, is flaccid; its power no greater than that of its
Syrian or Libyan counterparts.
The cost of corruption goes beyond money. An embezzlement scandal
sparked the 1994-97 Kurdish civil war between Barzani and his
rival, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan leader Jalal Talabani, Iraq's
current president. Barzani is not alone. With the complicity
of United Nations officials and cynical politicians, Saddam Hussein
siphoned off $1.8 billion from the UN's oil-for-food program.
While children died for lack of medicine, he built palaces and
his family members bought real estate in Amman.
Corruption has done almost as much to hobble Iraq's reconstruction
as the insurgency. Former Defense Minister Hazem al-Shalaan embezzled
close to $500 million in six months, audacious even by Middle
Eastern standards. Such money could have been used to arm and
protect Iraq's army and fight jihadists. Shaalan's colleagues
in the electricity and transportation ministries also raked off
millions.
Iraq is not unique. Visitors to Iran often hear students vent
their frustration with professors who sell grades, doctors who
extort money for treatment, and officials who use their government
positions for personal enrichment. Expediency Council Chairman
Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has cornered the lucrative pistachio
trade. Revolutionary foundations have done the same in the oil
and import-export markets. Petrodollar wealth has not reached
the population. In 1995, Iranian courts convicted businessmen
linked to the Foundation for the Disabled and Oppressed for embezzling
$400 million. Iranians, however, say the decision to press charges
was more about politics than justice. Far more corruption goes
unpunished. Senior Iranian officials live in luxury little different
from that of the monarch they overthrew.
Palestinian ministers have also used their positions more for
self-enrichment than development. The Palestinian Authority (PA)
has little to show for billions of dollars in foreign aid. Critics
of Israel can point to the bulldozed Gaza airport and complain
about border closures, but it was not the Israeli government
that built palatial mansions for Palestinian ministers or that
wired PA President Yasser Arafat's wife Suha $22 million annually.
In 2003, a team of American auditors estimated Arafat's net worth
at $3 billion. At the time of his January 2001 assassination,
Palestine Broadcasting Services director Hisham Makki had $17
million in his bank account; his monthly salary was only $1,500.
In the autumn 2004 issue of Middle East Quarterly, former Palestine
International Bank director Issam Abu Issa detailed the mechanism
by which other Arafat aides pocketed millions of dollars. Palestinian
refugees, meanwhile, live in squalor.
The situation is little different in Cairo and Amman, where
President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah II build palaces rather
than schools. In Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, residents pump sewage
from tanks several days per week. However, the money allocated
for a more efficient sewer system has disappeared.
According to Transparency International, Oman
and Israel are tied as the "cleanest" of Middle Eastern
countries. However, they rank only 28th overall. The African
countries of
Swaziland, Malawi and Madagascar rank above Yemen, Libya and
the PA. Troubled sub-Saharan Africa should not be the model to
which Arab countries aspire.
Terrorism is tragic. A car bomb in Baghdad, Beirut or Basra
can devastate dozens of lives. But corruption affects millions.
Saddam Hussein's embezzlement condemned many thousands of children
to death from preventable disease. The danger is not that the
victims of corruption turn to terrorism. Mali is one of the five
poorest countries on earth, and yet Freedom House ranks it as
the most democratic country in the Islamic world. Mali does not
produce terrorists; Saudi Arabia does.
Rather, the danger is in disillusionment. Iraqi Kurds, stifled
by the corruption of their leaders, are supporting Islamist parties.
While former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi describes himself
as the great secularist hope, his administration's corruption
drove even liberal Iraqis to vote for an Islamist alternative.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became Iran's president not because Iranians
supported his hard-line views, but because of their disgust with
Rafsanjani, who, to most Iranians, is regarded as corruption
incarnate. The greatest political beneficiary of PA corruption
has been Hamas. Likewise, Turks swept Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan's Justice and Development Party to power not because
they endorsed its religious vision, but because of anger with
the endemic corruption of the mainstream parties.
When Islamists come to power, democracy takes a hit. So too
do liberalism, women's rights and tolerance. Washington may preach
democracy; Arab reformers may debate whether reform should be
gradual, rapid, top-down or bottom-up. But until Arab citizens
hold their leaders accountable, in the press, on the Internet,
and on the street, the democracy debate will be moot.
This piece first appeared in The Daily Star (Beirut)
Michael Rubin, resident scholar at the American
Enterprise Institute, is editor of the Middle East Quarterly. -one-
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