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AS. upaya untuk mempromosikan demokrasi di Timur Tengah telah lama lumpuh oleh "dilema Islam": dalam teori, kami ingin demokrasi, tapi, dalam praktek, takut bahwa partai-partai Islam akan menjadi penerima manfaat utama dari pembukaan politik. Manifestasi paling tragis dari ini adalah bencana Aljazair dari 1991 dan 1992, ketika Amerika Serikat berdiri diam sementara militer sekuler yang kukuh membatalkan pemilihan setelah sebuah partai Islam memenangkan mayoritas parlemen. Baru-baru ini, pemerintahan Bush mundur dari “agenda kebebasan” setelah para Islamis melakukannya dengan sangat baik dalam pemilihan umum di seluruh wilayah, termasuk di Mesir, Arab Saudi, dan wilayah Palestina.

Tetapi bahkan ketakutan kita terhadap partai-partai Islam—dan penolakan yang diakibatkannya untuk terlibat dengan mereka—sendiri tidak konsisten, berlaku untuk beberapa negara tetapi tidak untuk negara lain. Semakin bahwa suatu negara dipandang penting bagi kepentingan keamanan nasional Amerika, Amerika Serikat yang kurang bersedia menerima kelompok-kelompok Islamis yang memiliki peran politik yang menonjol di sana. Namun, in countries seen as less strategically relevant, and where less is at stake, the United States has occasionally taken a more nuanced approach. But it is precisely where more is at stake that recognizing a role for nonviolent Islamists is most important, dan, sini, American policy continues to fall short.

Throughout the region, the United States has actively supported autocratic regimes and given the green light for campaigns of repression against groups such as the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest and most influential political movement in the region. Di bulan Maret 2008, during what many observers consider to be the worst period of anti-Brotherhood repression since the 1960s, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice waived a $100 million congressionally mandated reduction of military aid to Egypt. The situation in Jordan is similar. The Bush administration and the Democratic congress have hailed the country as a “model” of Arab reform at precisely the same time that it has been devising new ways to manipulate the electoral process to limit Islamist representation, and just as it held elections plagued by widespread allegations of outright fraud

and rigging.1 This is not a coincidence. Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab countries that have signed peace treaties with Israel. Lagi pula, they are seen as crucial to U.S. efforts to counter Iran, stabilize Iraq, and combat terrorism.