Princeton University Professor Emeritus Bernard Lewis is America’s foremost expert on Middle East history and the author of “What Went Wrong: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East” and the new “From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East.” This Atlantic Monthly Online interview provides Dr. Lewis’ current insights into Middle Eastern affairs and America’s role in that region. The entire interview is well worth reading, and these following observations on the effect of the growth of the strong centralized state in Middle Eastern societies is an example:

In a 1957 lecture about tensions in the Middle East you said that Westernization, in spite of its benefits, was the chief cause “of the political and social formlessness, instability and irresponsibility that bedevils public life of the Middle East.” I wonder, as you were writing nearly a half century ago, which particular aspects of Westernization you were referring to?

First of all, let me say what I mean by Westernization. This process was not mainly imposed by Western imperial rulers, who tend to be very cautious and conservative, tampering as little as possible with the existing institutions. It was done by reformers in the independent Middle Eastern countries. Enthusiastic reformers who recognized the success and power of the Western world and wanted to get the same for their own people?a very natural and very laudable ambition. But often with the very best of intentions, they achieved appalling results.
What I had in mind in particular was two things, both tending in the same direction. In the old order, the traditional Islamic Middle Eastern society was certainly authoritarian, but it was not despotic or dictatorial. It was a limited autocracy in which the power of the ruler, the Sultan or the Shah or the Pasha, whoever he might be, was limited both in theory and in practice. It was limited in theory by the Holy Law?the Divine Law to which the ruler was subject no less than the meanest of his slaves. It was also limited in practice by the existence of strong entrenched interests in society. You had the merchants of the bazaar, powerful guilds. You had the country gentry. You have the bureaucratic establishment, the military establishment, and the religious establishment. Each of these groups produced their own leaders?leaders who were not appointed by the State, who were not paid by the State, and who were not answerable to the State. These, therefore, formed a very important constraint on the autocracy of government.
Then came the process of modernization or Westernization, which for practical purposes are the same thing. It enormously increased the power of the central government by placing at its disposal the whole modern apparatus of surveillance and control: first the telegraph, later the telephone; the possibility of moving troops quickly, first by train then by truck or by plane. So the central government was able to assert itself and enforce its will even in remote provinces in a way that was inconceivable in earlier times. The effect of this was to weaken or even eliminate those intermediate powers that limited the autocracy of government.
When people look at the kind of regime that was operated by Saddam Hussein and say, “Well, that’s how they are, that’s their way of doing things,” it is simply not true. I mean, that kind of dictatorship has no roots in either the Arab or the Islamic past. It, unfortunately, is the consequence of Westernization or modernization in the Middle East.

And what about the currently popular speculation that representative government simply may not work in Middle Eastern societies?:

Well, there are certain elements in Islamic law and tradition which I think are conducive to democracy. The idea that government is contractual and consensual, for one thing. According to the Islamic Treatise on Holy Law, the ruler comes to power by an agreement between the ruler and his subjects. This is bilateral. Both sides have obligations. It is also limited. The ruler rules under the Holy Law, which he cannot change and which he must obey. So these two elements, I think, of consent and contract, also have the element of limitation, and can be very conducive to the development of democratic institutions. There is also a deeply rooted rejection in traditional Islamic writing of despotism or dictatorship, of the capricious rule of the ruler without due regard to the law and to the opinion of the various groups in society.

And finally, is Dr. Lewis optimistic about Iraq?:

I’m cautiously optimistic about what’s happening in Iraq. What bothers me is what’s happening here in the United States.

Do you mean the controversy over the occupation? The pressure to pull out?

Yes, because the message that this is sending to people in that region is that the Americans are frightened, they want to get out. They’ll abandon us the same as they did in ’91. And you know what happened in ’91.