Bush's Budget, and other things Posted by Shadi Hamid

The Project on Middle East Democracy – the organization I work for – has just released three excellent reports, which, in my biased opinion, are a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of Middle East reform. Stephen McInerney, someone who knows the congressional appropriations process like the back of his hand, has written a comprehensive and illuminating analysis of the fiscal year 2009 budget as it relates to funding for political reform in the Middle East. You’ll be surprised to find that requested funding for democracy-related programming in the region is at $758 million - a 89% increase over the amount appropriated the previous year. But, looked at more broadly, we still have a long way to go. As Steve points out:

Even in the international affairs budget for the [Broader Middle East and North Africa] region – normally thought of as the “’soft power’ counterpart to the DoD budget – 69% is designated for various forms of military assistance, as compared with 10% for democracy and governance.

The second and third POMED papers we’ve published are on “Perceptions of U.S. Democracy Promotion.” The author, David DeBartolo, takes a close look at polling results on how both Arabs and Americans perceive democratic reform in the Middle East. Instead of projecting our prejudices on Arabs and Muslims, it actually helps to look at – gasp – what they actually think on key issues like democracy and U.S. policy toward political reform. I know what you're thinking - foreign policy isn't a popularity contest! Except, having hundreds of millions of Arabs and Muslims angry at us for unabashedly supporting brutal dictators probably doesn't serve our national security interests too well.