Posted on 11/19/2003 5:48:22 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
SALT LAKE CITY – It's a pity that 99 percent of the protesters against President Bush during his British visit this week will not have read his democracy speech of a couple of weeks ago to the National Endowment for Democracy. (I'm fairly confident about that percentage, because not even 99 percent of his own compatriots have read it).
It offered remarkable insight into Mr. Bush's thinking about freedom for the world's still unfree, and contained significant clues about the new direction he will take in advancing freedom for them during his presidential tenure.
You can protest against the manner in which Bush has gone about bringing freedom to Iraq. That is a legitimate issue for debate. You can rail, with European hauteur, against the style of an American president who wears cowboy boots with his tuxedo and bestows folksy nicknames on foreign leaders.
But nobody, after reading that democracy speech, can doubt the man's passion for bringing at least some form of democracy to those parts of the world where people are still denied it.
Some will dismiss this as simplistic and naive. That, of course, was what some Europeans thought of Ronald Reagan's Palace of Westminster speech in 1982, when he told a British audience that a turning point in history had arrived - that Soviet communism had failed because it did not respect its own people, their creativity, and their rights.
The British protesters against Bush already enjoy stable democracy. Nevertheless their prime minister, Tony Blair, has paid a high political price for voicing the same ambitions as Bush for the world's oppressed. But nobody who listened to his speech at London's Guildhall a few nights ago (a speech 99 percent of Americans never heard, unless they happened to be watching C-SPAN late at night) could question Blair's commitment to the pursuit of liberty for others that his countrymen already celebrate.
In his speech calling for a new "forward strategy" in US foreign policy, Bush pledged to put American power "at the service of principle." But this was no bellicose threat of military action against every nation that tramples human rights.
The postwar problems in Iraq must surely have been sobering to the White House and to the American public alike. The president targeted Cuba and Burma (Myanmar) and North Korea and Zimbabwe as "outposts of oppression," but his particular frustration was reserved for the lands of the Middle East, whose lack of freedom, he said, had been "excused and accommodated," for 60 years by Western nations.
Thus persuasion, and the encouragement of the "leaders of new democracies," who will one day emerge "from prison cells and from exile," seems to be at the heart of the new policy.
Particularly interesting were his remarks about Iran. Though US intelligence about Iraq's nuclear planning may have been flaky, there isn't much doubt that Iran has had nuclear ambitions and tried to cover them up. Despite recent Iranian promises of openness to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), designed to forestall sanctions, Iran's potential nuclear capability remains considerable.
Yet Bush made no threat of a US invasion of Iran in his speech, rather suggesting that reform and change should come from within: "The regime in Iran must heed the democratic demands of the Iranian people, or lose its last claim to legitimacy."
A few days before, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage had assured US senators that regime change in Iran is not US policy. But, said Mr. Armitage, the US would be "very forthright in our views about transparency and governance and human rights."
Experts I've talked to suggest that Iran is not currently in a prerevolutionary mode. Offending newspapers and dissidents feel the brunt of the regime's apparatus of repression. But recent student demonstrations have abated. And while there is substantial discontent (12 to 15 percent of the population "officially" unemployed, but actually perhaps nearer 20 percent), the public seems leery of violent upheaval, instead hoping for peaceful evolution through constitutional means.
Against this background at home, the Iranian regime seems willing to engage in dialogue with the US, while taking pragmatic steps to stave off confrontation with the IAEA, and the European Union, both of which took a tough stand on disclosure and inspection of Iran's nuclear facilities.
While the awesome might of the American military remains evident, the George Bush the British are seeing this week is embarked on a new "forward strategy" that involves far less militancy.
• John Hughes, editor and chief operating officer of the Deseret Morning News, is a former editor of the Monitor.
The sacrifices of Americans have not always been recognized or appreciated, yet they have been worthwhile. Because we and our allies were steadfast, Germany and Japan are democratic nations that no longer threaten the world. A global nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union ended peacefully -- as did the Soviet Union. The nations of Europe are moving towards unity, not dividing into armed camps and descending into genocide. Every nation has learned, or should have learned, an important lesson: Freedom is worth fighting for, dying for, and standing for -- and the advance of freedom leads to peace. (Applause.)
And now we must apply that lesson in our own time. We've reached another great turning point -- and the resolve we show will shape the next stage of the world democratic movement. ***
The clairty and power of a simple, true idea builds as it sinks in.
A majority of Labour voters welcome President George Bush's state visit to Britain which starts today, according to November's Guardian/ICM opinion poll. The survey shows that public opinion in Britain is overwhelmingly pro-American with 62% of voters believing that the US is "generally speaking a force for good, not evil, in the world". It explodes the conventional political wisdom at Westminster that Mr Bush's visit will prove damaging to Tony Blair. Only 15% of British voters agree with the idea that America is the "evil empire" in the world. ...
The ICM poll also uncovers a surge in pro-war sentiment in the past two months as suicide bombers have stepped up their attacks on western targets and troops in Iraq. Opposition to the war has slumped by 12 points since September to only 41% of all voters. At the same time those who believe the war was justified has jumped 9 points to 47% of voters. This swing in the mood of British voters is echoed in the poll's finding that two-thirds of voters believe British and American troops should not pull out of Iraq now but instead stay until the situation is "more stable".
Somehow, I doubt we'll be hearing this from the TV networks, which will show just more footage of whacko protesters.
The saudi royal family just perked their ears up...enemy of my enemy is my friend no longer applies. I think Bush is takinga more principled stance vis a vis dictatorships and monarchies...the price we pay for suporting them is not worth short-term stability. If the US insists that ME countries must answer to their populace, this is a radical and welcome shift in our policy.
Imposing democracy on cultures foreign to it is a chancy business. After a savage and incredibly destructive war it was successfully done in Germany and Japan - and Europe in general seems to be willing to go to great lengths to avoid a repetition of WWII.
But Europe and Japan are the most advanced industrial societies in the world (along with the U.S.). Everywhere else success has been problematic. Russia? The former Soviet Republics? Latin America? Africa? The Middle East? Southeast Asia? Please.
The only notable exception is Israel - and that's because, culturally, Israel is a child of Western Europe.
So America will continue to pursue the Machiavellian defense of its national interests because that's the best policy available to it - or any other nation.
from today's speech...
Perhaps the most helpful change we can make is to change in our own thinking. In the West, there's been a certain skepticism about the capacity or even the desire of Middle Eastern peoples for self- government.
We're told that Islam is somehow inconsistent with a democratic culture, yet more than half of the world's Muslims are today contributing citizens in democratic societies. It is suggested that the poor, in their daily struggles, care little for self-government, yet the poor especially need the power of democracy to defend themselves against corrupt elites.
People from the Middle East share a high civilization, a religion of personal responsibility and a need for freedom as deep as our own.
It is not realism to suppose that one-fifth of humanity is unsuited to liberty. It is pessimism and condescension, and we should have none of it.
C-SPAN I covered the President's speech, and had a Telegraph correspondent and viewer comments on afterwards.
The correspondent mentioned some of this recent trend in the polls as the going has gotten tougher: The public's spine has stiffened. The reporter also said the President's allusions to WWII would hit home too with the Brits.
I don't know whether or not the "wogs" are culturally incapable of this or that (neither do you). I was just describing the world as it is and has been. Just because we wish it was something else doesn't mean it can or will be.
I hope so. Too bad it doesn't get through to the French, who are busy sitting around waiting for the country to be completely taken over by Muslim terrorists.
A glance at the worlswide distn of muslims at the following...
http://www.mepc.org/public_asp/workshops/musworld.asp
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