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Bush with
a new axis to grind
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - In what the White House billed as a major address, President
George W Bush on Thursday announced that the United States has adopted a new
policy he calls "a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East".
The speech, which comes amid growing public and congressional unease about the
costs and duration of the US occupation of Iraq, appeared designed to rally
support by casting the occupation as part of an historic mission by Washington
to spread liberty and democracy around the world.
But independent analysts warned that Bush's sweeping rhetoric could backfire,
both by fueling concerns about his administration's larger regional ambitions
and by creating expectations that are unlikely to be met, even in Iraq.
"The rhetoric is meaningless if the reality on the ground gets much worse,"
said Geoffrey Kemp, a top Middle East adviser to former president Ronald Reagan
and currently with the Richard M Nixon Center, a think tank in Washington.
In an interview he also noted that Bush's praise of authoritarian allies in the
region could well provoke more cynicism about US intentions among democratic
forces there. "This is part of an increasingly desperate attempt by the
administration to shore up support for Iraq," said Charles Kupchan, a foreign
policy analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations. "A war that was supposed to
be about national security must now be cast as a war for Wilsonian liberalism,"
he told Inter Press Service.
The speech was addressed to the 20th anniversary celebrations of the National
Endowment for Democracy (NED), a quasi-governmental agency created under Reagan
that funds political activities abroad. Invoking Reagan repeatedly, Bush
insisted that the occupation in Iraq marks "another great turning point"
signaling the "next stage of the world democratic movement" after the Cold War.
"Communism, and militarism, and rule by the capricious and corrupt are the
relics of a passing era," Bush declared, noting that "our commitment to
democracy is tested in countries like Cuba, and Burma [Myanmar] and North Korea
and Zimbabwe, outposts of oppression in our world". "We will stand with these
oppressed peoples until the day of liberation and freedom finally arrives," he
added.
Bush said decolonization in the Middle East had led to the creation of "many
dictatorships", some of which allied themselves "with the Soviet bloc and with
international terrorism". "Dictators in Iraq and Syria promised the restoration
of national honor, a return to ancient glories. They've left instead a legacy
of torture, oppression, misery and ruin," he added. In spite of this history,
he went on, "governments across the Middle East and North Africa are beginning
to see the need for change."
Bush cited in particular political reforms implemented by Morocco's King
Mohammed; recent elections in Bahrain and Jordan; the extension of suffrage to
all adult citizens in Oman; a new constitution in Qatar; "a multi-party
political system" in Yemen; and a directly-elected national assembly in Kuwait.
"These are the stirrings of Middle Eastern democracy," he said, "and they carry
the promise of greater change to come".
In Iran, Bush claimed, the demand for democracy "is strong and broad", and he
warned that the "regime in Teheran must heed the democratic demands of the
Iranian people or lose its last claim to legitimacy".
As for the Palestinians, "The only path to independence and dignity and
progress is the path of democracy," said Bush, who, without naming elected
President Yasser Arafat, warned that leaders "who block and undermine
democratic reform and feed hatred and encourage violence are not leaders at
all".
Democratization need not take the form of "Westernization", Bush stressed,
suggesting that Middle East states could be "constitutional monarchies, federal
republics or parliamentary systems". But they should include certain "central
principles", like limits on the powers of the state and the military; the rule
of law; space for civil society, political parties, labor unions and a free
press; religious liberty; the privatization of the economy; and guarantees of
women's rights.
All of these, Bush said, are now being applied to Afghanistan and Iraq. "The
failure of Iraqi democracy," he warned, would embolden terrorists around the
world, and increase dangers to the American people and extinguish the hopes of
millions in the region."
As a result, Washington should put an end to "60 years of Western nations
excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East [which] did
nothing to make us safe, because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased
at the expense of liberty". "Therefore, the United States has adopted a new
policy - a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East."
While his remarks no doubt gave heart to neo-conservative hawks dispirited by
recent setbacks in Iraq, the fact that Bush announced no new programs to back
up his soaring rhetoric was noted privately, even by NED staffers who gave him
a warm welcome.
The administration asked Congress last year to provide US$140 million in a new
initiative to promote democracy in the Middle East and North Africa, a tiny
fraction of the nearly $70 billion it is spending to sustain its military
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The speech was "an attempt to put a very positive spin" on recent events "to
convince a public that is becoming more skeptical about the benefits of the war
in Iraq that it already has had very positive impacts on the area", according
to Marina Ottaway, co-director of the democracy and rule of law project at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
"I don't think this will be seen as very convincing in the Arab world or to
people here who are familiar with recent developments there," she added in an
interview. Ottaway described the speech as a "double-edged sword" for Bush,
primarily because of the fading likelihood that elections for a new government
in Iraq - a pre-condition set by Washington for transferring sovereignty to the
Iraqi people - can be held before next year's presidential elections in the US.
Any premature transfer to shortcut the process, as Bush will be tempted to do,
"is likely to be very messy", she said.
Kemp said the speech - particularly the different treatment accorded US allies,
such as Saudi Arabia and the emirates on the one hand, and perceived foes, such
as Syria and Iran on the other - will be greeted in the region as another
example of the administration's double standards. "The irony is that to succeed
in Afghanistan, the US embraced two very powerful dictators, Islam Karimov of
Uzbekistan and Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, and he didn't mention either one,"
noted Kemp.
(Inter Press Service)
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