The Allure of Western Embassies and Democratic Promises

We do not know the secret of the U.S. Embassy’s attractiveness to the Jordanian elite — whether the working, retired or aspiring elite — but messages and faxes are often sent to the embassy by those who want to share their concerns about Jordan with their American friends. A friend of mine worked in the U.S. Embassy for a while, and she was appalled by the number of reports and messages sent to the embassy by Jordanian leaders and persons of influence, all containing complaints and critical comments about their country. As if raising grievances about their country’s situation will get their foot in the door of U.S. prosperity or bring about U.S. promises of democracy.

After its recent surveillance scandal, which revealed Jordan to be among the top three most-watched nations, America does not need Jordanians thronging around their embassy. Unfortunately, leadership movements that market themselves as patriotic endeavors are actually trying by any means to gain entrance to U.S. society by way of the embassy. This is nothing new, as many Arab elites have played the same trick in their societies, which brought nothing but woe and susceptibility to colonialism.

Inevitably it will only lead us to increased dependency on America and its embassies, and those of other Western countries, at no harm to it or to its democracy, which tore apart Iraq and ravaged Palestine. As for the “Facebook Democracy” that Arabs seem to think will change history, this will only lead to increased chaos; for as long as it remains a lame democracy, bound and economically reliant on Washington’s good will, inevitably nothing will change. Arabs still remember how the West plotted against the democratic election results in Algeria, when Islamists won seats in parliament, and likewise in Gaza. It will be the same situation everywhere.

The embassies in our beloved country will neither lead us into the world of democracy nor will they bring about reform, and addressing grievances about our country by way of the embassy is indicative of weakness and a lack of patriotism. Unfortunately, people take great pride in the number of invitations they receive from embassies, with some writers and elites volunteering their consulting services and providing foreign embassies with information on our country and its future prospects.

We are not referring to any respectable Arab embassy that honors its relations with Jordan, but rather to embassies of those nations embroiled in the Zionist scheme, who saw to the dismantling of the region and abetted all that stands against our people’s freedom. Unfortunately, these embassies have power these days in the form of the civil society establishments affiliated with them, which are endeavoring to be their accomplices in dismantling the nation.

Since the second half of the 20th century, the U.S. has wanted a Middle East that is under its thumb, and has therefore put forth many political initiatives and alliances with which they hoped to establish U.S.-dependent systems, encouraging both war and peace at the same time. The U.S. presence found its way in through political circumstances: once under the claim of the Soviet threat and the fight against the communist presence, and again on the pretext of regional stability, having taken part in inciting Saddam Hussein to react to the Iranian threat and impelling him to occupy Kuwait. Between these two wars, it accorded Israel an excuse to invade Beirut.

In the early 1990s the U.S. came back on the pretext of much sought-after peace and equality in the Middle East, and when this peace fizzled out on unfulfilled promises, the U.S. came back calling for democracy, reform and smooth change. The U.S. presence was successively employed by two presidents: Bush, the author of prodigious chaos and democracy by violence, the looming result of which was a divided Iraq, and Obama, who wanted to create a soft democracy bearing the same fruit and serving the same interests. Obama’s speech the day he visited Cairo was a call for change, the first harbinger of what is happening today. But this was a fleeting message that passed by before Arabs could contemplate it, and has today turned into bloody sectarian change in Syria.