DOHA, Qatar — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered a scalding critique of Arab leaders here on Thursday, saying their countries risked “sinking into the sand” of unrest and extremism unless they liberalized their political systems and cleaned up their economies.
Speaking at a conference in this gleaming Persian Gulf emirate, Mrs. Clinton recited a familiar litany of ills: corruption, repression and a lack of rights for women and religious minorities. But her remarks were striking for their vehemence, and they suggested a frustration that the Obama administration’s message to the Arab world had not gotten through.
“In too many places, in too many ways, the region’s foundations are sinking into the sand,” she said to a stone-faced audience of foreign ministers, businesspeople and rights groups. “The new and dynamic Middle East that I have seen needs firmer ground if it is to take root and grow everywhere.”
Mrs. Clinton’s remarks were delivered at the end of an intense, four-day tour of the Persian Gulf that took her from impoverished, autocratic Yemen to the prosperous, comparatively open sultanate of Oman. She also stopped in Abu Dhabi and Dubai before finishing in Qatar, a wealthy fief still exulting in its selection as the site of the World Cup soccer tournament in 2022.
As Mrs. Clinton delivered her critique, events echoed loudly in the background: unrest in Tunisia that threatened its government while serving to buttress her arguments; and a developing political crisis in Lebanon that illustrated both the range and the limits of American influence in the region.
The United States has little leverage over the pivotal players in Lebanon, notably the militant group Hezbollah, whose ministers walked out of the coalition government in Beirut on Wednesday, forcing its collapse.
While Mrs. Clinton applauded signs of progress in Qatar and elsewhere, it was Yemen, with its crippled economy and creeping subculture of Islamic terrorism, that seemed to stick in her mind.
A day after her visit Tuesday, the Yemeni government announced that for security reasons citizens would need permits to visit foreign embassies, according to the official news agency, Saba. Mrs. Clinton had met opposition figures at the American Embassy in the capital, Sana.
“Those who cling to the status quo may be able to hold back the full impact of their countries’ problems for a little while, but not forever,” Mrs. Clinton said. “If leaders don’t offer a positive vision and give young people meaningful ways to contribute, others will fill the vacuum.”
She added, “Extremist elements, terrorist groups and others who would prey on desperation and poverty are already out there, appealing for allegiance and competing for influence.”
Mrs. Clinton saved her most scathing remarks for corruption, which she said was corroding Arab economies and making life impossible for foreigners who ran businesses in Arab countries.
“Trying to get a permit,” she said, “you have to pass money through so many different hands. Trying to open up, you have to pay people off. Trying to stay open, you have to pay people off. Trying to export your goods, you have to pay people off. So by the time you pay everybody off, it’s not a very profitable venture.”
Mrs. Clinton’s audience listened silently, though the foreign minister of Bahrain, Sheik Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa, calmly defended his country’s record. Bahrain is much more open than a decade ago, he said, with major growth in advocacy groups and labor unions.
Even when Mrs. Clinton was pressed on why the Obama administration tolerated Israel’s expansion of settlements in the West Bank — an issue that rankles throughout the Arab world and has contributed to a breakdown of the Middle East peace process — she pushed back.
The United States, she said, gazing pointedly around the room, fails to get a lot of countries to do what it wants. And she said that Americans bore a disproportionate burden of settling the world’s conflicts.
Mrs. Clinton also noted that the United States was the top financial donor to the Palestinian Authority — an implicit rebuke of Arab states, which champion the Palestinian cause but, in the view of critics, do too little to support its efforts to build institutions on the West Bank.
