As instability abounds in the Middle East, so does uncertainty for the Western powers. The protests in the Arab world loom as potentially major threats to American diplomatic efforts.
Though no figures have emerged as potential successors to the unseated regimes in Egypt and Tunisia, change seems inevitable nonetheless. And in Libya and Yemen, the sustainability of the current governments dwindles daily.
So what does that mean for the United States?
On the one hand, regime change in the Middle East is fickle and hard to predict. But on the other hand, there is growing consensus among analysts that new governments — particularly in countries like Egypt, whose ousted dictators were friendly to the U.S. — are likely to distance themselves from Western political influence. There is a strong perception in Egypt and Yemen that their leaders are simply American puppets.
The threat of regime change would be but another blow to U.S. influence in the region. So the current unrest may simply force U.S. policy makers to face what has long been a reality: after over a half-century of U.S. dominance in the Middle East, American hegemony is dwindling.
Though there are no clear-cut lines of causality, America’s perpetual support of unpopular dictators, protracted wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and inability to achieve Palestinian statehood have all contributed to its declining regional influence.
But perhaps America’s decline is not inexorable. A great historical precedent calls for further examination.
Immediately following World War II, America saw an opportunity to increase its influence across the globe — because most countries involved in the war were crippled by the massive damage wreaked from years of perpetual bombing — and counter the USSR’s aggressive spread of communist ideology.
So, beginning in 1948, the United States began distributing $13 billion in economic and technical aid to European countries and others in strategic locations under what became known as the Marshall Plan.
While the results are not easily measured definitively, most economists and historians today agree it played a crucial role in post-war reconstruction in Europe.
As Belgian economic historian Herman Van der Wee explains, the Marshall plan was vital in the “reconstruction in Western Europe and made a decisive contribution to the renewal of the transport system, the modernization of industrial and agricultural equipment, the resumption of normal production, the raising of productivity, and the facilitating of intra-European trade.”
In addition to helping rebuild war-ravaged countries, the Marshall Plan served as one of the primary means by which the United States gained influence worldwide.
Given America’s diminishing position in the Middle East, would another Marshall Plan for the region make sense today? Could a massive economic gift to key countries in the region bring America into the graces of these nascent governments?
The prospects certainly seem promising, particularly in places with weak, undiversified economies. These places would be the most eager to accept aid in return for warmer ties to the United States, even if a new, unfriendly government does take over. Libya, for example, has an economy based almost entirely around the exportation of oil; Tunisia’s is centered around tourism and agri-food products.
Such a plan would be a tougher sell in countries like Egypt, whose economy is already well on its way to modernization. Particularly if a government is voted into power that is eager to distance itself from the United States — as seems likely to happen — regaining a foothold there may be hard.
This concern highlights one of the main obstacles to a Middle East Marshall Plan.
U.S. policy makers would have to support new regimes, while simultaneously diminishing the perception that aid was simply for the sake of re-exerting influence over the receiving countries. This would be difficult, though — given how much aid, both economic and military, the United States gave and still gives to unpopular leaders in the region.
The second, and potentially more important, concern is that these protests revolve not around economic dissatisfaction, but regime dissatisfaction. Protesters haven’t necessarily taken to the streets for better jobs, so much as they are tired of living under autocrats and brutal police and without basic freedoms. If that is indeed what protesters across the region are fighting against, it carries positive implications for the region, but negative implications for the United States.
This democratic movement would mean incoming governments would be much less likely to submit to influence, even with a financial incentive. But if the U.S. is able to overcome the perception that it is simply trying to establish puppet governments through economic incentive, and is able to bring whatever new governments that come about into its good graces, a Middle East Marshall Plan could indeed make sense.
That means waiting out the upheaval, strengthening ties with groups that look poised to take power and figuring out ways to simultaneously stay influential without supporting brutal regimes.