Laurence Pope: The Second Arab Awakening
[Laurence Pope is a retired U.S. diplomat and former political advisor at the U.S Central Command.]
PORTLAND, MAINE — In 1938, George Antonius, a Lebanese-Egyptian writer and diplomat, wrote a seminal book titled “The Arab Awakening,” tracing the spread of Western ideas in the Arab world and the origins of a new pan-Arab consciousness to institutions such as the American University of Beirut and Robert College in Istanbul.
In the postwar years, this hopeful vision was replaced by the ideology of Arab nationalism, an ill-digested mix of Marxism and Arab triumphalism summed up in the Baathist slogan “One Arab nation, with an immortal mission.”...
The United States will face the task of establishing a relationship of equals with these emerging democracies, ending the client-patron politics of the past.
Israel will no longer be our only democratic partner in the region, and our current neglect of the Arab-Israeli peace process is unlikely to be sustainable, much less desirable. Israel will view this shift with understandable disquiet, but over time a new relationship with a more democratic Egypt may work to Israel’s advantage....
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PORTLAND, MAINE — In 1938, George Antonius, a Lebanese-Egyptian writer and diplomat, wrote a seminal book titled “The Arab Awakening,” tracing the spread of Western ideas in the Arab world and the origins of a new pan-Arab consciousness to institutions such as the American University of Beirut and Robert College in Istanbul.
In the postwar years, this hopeful vision was replaced by the ideology of Arab nationalism, an ill-digested mix of Marxism and Arab triumphalism summed up in the Baathist slogan “One Arab nation, with an immortal mission.”...
The United States will face the task of establishing a relationship of equals with these emerging democracies, ending the client-patron politics of the past.
Israel will no longer be our only democratic partner in the region, and our current neglect of the Arab-Israeli peace process is unlikely to be sustainable, much less desirable. Israel will view this shift with understandable disquiet, but over time a new relationship with a more democratic Egypt may work to Israel’s advantage....