Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 2004, page 20

Special Report

 

Bush’s “Forward Strategy” for Freedom in the Middle East

 

By Richard H. Curtiss

President George W. Bush and his administration have embarked on a concerted effort to staunch the slipping support at home and abroad for the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Previously, the president had mentioned the spread of Middle Eastern democracy as one of several justifications for the invasion of Iraq. Now, however, Bush has made that rationale his primary one, no longer mentioning weapons of mass destruction, and making only passing reference to national security and terrorism.

Speaking Nov. 7 before the National Endowment for Democracy, Bush presented his vision for “a forward strategy for freedom in the Middle East.” Former Congressman Vin Weber of Minnesota, now chairman of the National Endowment for Democracy, introduced Bush at the occasion, which marked the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the organization, launched in 1982 by former President Ronald Reagan.

“It is no accident that the rise of so many democracies took place in a time when the world’s most influential nation was itself a democracy,” the president said. “The United States made military and moral commitments in Europe and Asia which protected free nations from aggression and created the conditions in which new democracies could flourish. As we provided security for whole nations, we also provided inspiration for oppressed peoples…

“Because we and our allies were steadfast,” he explained, “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 toward unity…”

Bush continued: “Some skeptics of democracy assert that the traditions of Islam are inhospitable to representative government…It should be clear to all that Islam, the faith of one-fifth of humanity, is consistent with democratic rule…More than half of all Muslims live in freedom under democratically constituted governments.

“They succeed in democratic societies, not in spite of their faith,” he emphasized, “but because of it. A religion that demands individual moral accountability and encourages the encounter of the individual with God is fully compatible with the rights and responsibilities of self-government…

“Instead of dwelling on past wrongs and blaming others,” Bush went on, “governments in the Middle East need to confront real problems and serve the true interests of their nations…For the Palestinian people, the path to independence and dignity and progress is the path to democracy…The Saudi government is taking first steps toward reform, including a plan for gradual introduction of elections…The great and proud nation of Egypt has shown the way toward peace in the Middle East, and now should show the way toward democracy in the Middle East…”

 

The Arab press featured widespread discussion of the president’s remarks.

He continued: “Morocco has a diverse new parliament. King Mohammed has urged it to extend rights to women…In Bahrain last year, citizens elected their own parliament for the first time in nearly three decades. Oman has extended the vote to all adult citizens. Qatar has a new constitution. Yemen has a multi-party political system. Kuwait has a directly elected national assembly. And Jordan held historic elections this summer…

“We are mindful that Modernization is not the same thing as Westernization,” the president noted. “Representative governments in the Middle East will reflect their own cultures. They will not, and should not, look like us…”

Describing democracy as an “essential principle common to every successful society in every culture,” Bush stated that these societies “prohibit and punish official corruption and invest in the health and education of their people.”

Continuing, he predicted: “The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution…Therefore the United States has adopted a new policy: a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East…We believe that liberty is the direction of history… And we believe the freedom, the freedom we prize, is not for us alone. It is the right and the capacity of all mankind...With all the tests and all the challenges of our age, this is, above all, the age of liberty.”

In addition to domestic coverage of the speech, the American-run Arabic-language Radio Sawa covered the event, and the Arab press featured widespread discussion of the president’s remarks.

“Exposing the region’s ills is useless,” wrote An Nahar columnist Sahar Baasiri. “We already know them…What is required is a realization that the underlying problem continues to be Palestine and the obscene American bias for Israel and against Arabs, their interests and hopes.”

In the opinion of Yemeni political analyst Mansour Hael: “Bush’s words weren’t even aimed at the Middle East, but at an American public growing doubtful of his administration’s policies. The whole speech…is a campaigning thing more than a reading of the Arab reality.”

Reuters news agency reported that Abdel-Monem Said, director of Egypt’s Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, questioned the Bush administration’s honesty in justifying the Iraq war, which concomitantly tarnished its credibility.

According to New York Times Cairo correspondent Neil MacFarquhar, the most common conclusion in Arab press commentary is that until Washington does something to force Israel to change the lot of the Palestinians, statements about greater democracy and freedom will ring hollow.

 

Noncommissioned Remarks

Iranian Foreign Ministry representative Hamidreza Asefi rejected Bush’s remarks as interference in his country’s internal affairs: “No individual, or group, has ever commissioned Mr. Bush to safeguard their rights, nor is he responsible for supporting anyone here.”

Syrian commentator Imad Fawzi Shueibi, a political analyst at Damascus University, said that Syrians of course aspired to greater liberty at home, but do not want to hear about it from a country that is occupying Iraq and has a history of backing Israel.

In a letter to The New York Times, Philip Dutter asked: “How do we explain the shoddy treatment of hundreds of Muslims in the United States by the Justice Department in the wake of the Sept. 11 tragedy? How do we explain our failure to curb Israel’s expansion of settlements in the West Bank and the extension of the divisive barrier? How do we explain the thousands of Iraqis killed and maimed as a result of an invasion we began on the grounds that now turn out to be largely unjustified?”

Bush later signed into law an $87.5 billion spending package, mostly for Iraq.

Richard H. Curtiss is executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

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