The Democratic Game

Forward strategy?

“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. Now we must apply that lesson in our own time.”

The vision thing. As the world mired itself in terrorism again this week, President George W. Bush got busy painting the bigger picture.

In an address to the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, Bush evoked his hero, Ronald Reagan, and spoke of “the advance of freedom” being “the calling of our time”.

Rightly or wrongly, the Bush administration has long believed that Reagan’s moral clarity triggered the collapse of the Soviet regime. Reagan told it like it was. The Soviet Union was morally bankrupt and would be blown away by the irresistible winds of change. The Russian people deserved respect, rights, liberty and democracy. Try as it might to suppress the dreams of its people, the “Evil Empire” could never win. Freedom is the eternal dream of mankind.

Admittedly, the Diary has a tendency to gush at these moments. But you can’t deny, this is powerful stuff. And now, twenty-one years later, in a much-changed world, Bush (President No. 43) is trying the same strategy with the Middle East.

“The good and capable people of the Middle East all deserve responsible leadership. For too long, many people in that region have been victims and subjects. They deserve to be active citizens.”

This dream is necessary and inevitable, Bush said. Just look at the facts. “In the early 1970s, there were about 40 democracies in the world. As the 20th century ended, there were about 120 democracies in the world and I can assure you more are on the way.”

A president once famed for his isolationist disinterest in the world proclaimed “the United States has adopted a new policy, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East.” The choice is simple, Bush said, “those with power should ask themselves: Will they be remembered for resisting reform or for leading it?”

How much less conservative can you get?

Of course, the key to this domino theory is Iraq. And “Iraqi democracy will succeed – and that success will send forth the news, from Damascus to Tehran – that freedom can be the future of every nation.”

If Iraq succeeds, then, before you know it, everywhere from Cuba to North Korea will taste the fruits of democracy, and the Diary will have nothing but good news to report, which would make a nice change.

“The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East,” Bush said, “will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution.”

Wow!

And there was some self-interest too. “Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe – because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty.”

Amazing stuff, but is Bush just being naive? Is he nothing but an overly-optimistic idealist in a cynical world? What about Realpolitik, and the difficulty of implementing democracy in nations used to tyranny, autocracy, theocracy, and all that stuff? Are Islam and democracy really compatible?

Stop making excuses, says the Prez. To say otherwise is “culturally condescending”. “Time after time, observers have questioned whether this country, or that people, or this group, are “ready” for democracy – as if freedom were a prize you win for meeting our own Western standards of progress.”

The times they are a-changin’.

All this, by the way, is remarkably similar to the case that Thomas Friedman has been making in the New York Times. Not long ago, the United States state department was rejecting Friedman’s theory as unworkable. Or so said Jack Beatty in the Atlantic Monthly (29 October) who argued that “[Friedman’s] maximalist vision – which in the absence of weapons of mass destruction President Bush and other in his Administration have been playing up as a rationale for the war and its punishing sequel – is morally attractive and strategically acute, but programmatically inordinate.”

This week, the Diary can’t help noticing, Colin Powell spoke in favour of Bush’s new “forward strategy” for the Middle East. “Specifically Mr Powell said success in rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan as democracies would help reshape their regions,” wrote BBC US state department correspondent Jon Leyne. “His comments show that the Bush administration is trying to recast the conflict in Iraq as part of a wider struggle.”

Er, what was that you said?

OK, so what kind of a reaction did Bush get?

Pretty much what you’d expect, actually. Using language like “send forth the news”, Bush clearly believes this is his “calling”, a word he uses repeatedly.

Unfortunately, there are some who don’t quite buy it. For those of you who hadn’t heard, democracy has not caught on in the Middle East. And the US has a patchy record on promoting democracy in a world littered with friendly and useful dictators. Democracy, as the Diary has said many times before, is no guarantee of US-friendly regimes.

Can Dubya sidestep the historical precedent? “Bush is not the first president to promise to put democracy at the forefront of American policy,” warned the New York Times. “We hope he does a better job delivering on his promises than some of his predecessors.”

The London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi accused Bush of “resorting to the war of democracy”, which it sees as a negative thing. President Bush, the paper said, is “bankrupt and has nothing new in his pouch to give to the American people and the whole world after his failure in Iraq.”

Predictably, most objection focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “[T]he fundamental problem remains that of Palestine, and the scandalous US bias in favour of Israel and against the Arabs, their interests, and their aspirations,” wrote Sahar Baasiri in the Lebanese daily Al-Nahar. However, the Palestinian Al-Quds threw down a tempting challenge to the US: “modify [your] policy towards the region and stand with the Palestinian people to end the occupation and settlement ... In this way the Arab regimes’ excuse for oppressing their peoples would disappear.”

And then there’s Saudi Arabia. “Promoting democracy there must become an urgent US priority,” the NYT said. Al-Riyadh was not so sure: “The USA, which is drowning in the waters of the Tigris and the Euphrates, seems to have been defeated. It is claiming that it has backed Arab dictatorial regimes for half a century. We do not understand what type of backing this is, nor do we know how much it has spent in the region.”

How convenient.

Writing in the state-controlled al-Thawra newspaper, Buthayna Shaaban, Syrian immigrant affairs minister, told the US to abandon “bias, violence, racism, occupation ... and repression.”

Just like the Syrian government.

Bush’s policy, said Shaaban, would “widen the gap between the US and the whole world, and also threaten international peace.”

(Various sources including BBC Monitoring)

Beautiful triumphs and spectacular irregularities

Talking of democracy ...

It’s all been happening this week.

In Japan, prime minister Junichiro Koizumi’s governing coalition held on to power, despite large gains by the opposition in parliamentary elections. Japan, it is suggested, may be moving towards a two-party system [the Liberal Democratic Party (LPD) has governed virtually uninterrupted for the last fifty years]. The big question is whether Koizumi has a mandate to push through the reforms opposed by conservatives in his own LPD. Of course I have, says Koizumi: “I want to nurture the bud of reform into a big tree.”

Turnout was low, unlike in Guatemala, where, in the words of Oscar Edmundo Bolanos, president of the national electoral board, “There were too many people who wanted to vote.” To the relief of everyone except his supporters, former military ruler Efrain Rios Montt accepted defeat in the presidential election after finishing in third place with 17% of the vote, and vowed not to challenge the result. “The people have the right to choose, and for us this is democracy,” said his vice-presidential running mate Edin Barrientos. “Everyone knows that to run for office is to put forward your proposals and if they aren’t accepted, you can’t be sad about it.”

Dubya would be proud. No, hold on ...

Anyway, this was the second presidential contest in Guatemala since 1996 following a 36-year civil war. The two leading challengers, Oscar Berger and Alvaro Colom, will face each other in a run-off for the presidency on 28 December. Neither candidate secured the necessary 50% of the vote.

The press were joyous. Siglo Veintiuno put it best: “Beautiful triumph of democracy! ... With considerable devotion and despite the threats of violence overshadowing the day, Guatemalans turned out en masse at the polls to write a beautiful page in the nation’s history of civic pride and democratic vocation ... There is one overwhelming winner – the Guatemalan people.”

Actually, the elections were marred by several reports of fraud. 22 people have been killed since May 2003 for apparently political motives. On Saturday, a political secretary for Alvaro Colom was shot and wounded. However Prensa Libra couldn’t help but be upbeat: “The Guatemalan people have proved they know how to play the democratic game,” the newspaper said.

No such praise for events in Georgia, where street protests continued this week as opposition supporters refused to accept the result of last week’s parliamentary polls and accuse President Edward Shevardnadze of rigging the election (the head observer of the OSCE spoke of “spectacular” irregularities). Shevardnadze has offered to meet with opposition leaders, saying of the protestors, “They are our citizens. They are our children ... We should work with them.”

Whether this will prevent an outbreak of violence is yet to be seen. Russian President Vladimir Putin is keeping a close eye on events, and telephoned Schevardnadze to offer all the help the Kremlin can give.

Seems like old times.

Meanwhile, there’s trouble in Mauritania as Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla, the runner-up Islamist candidate in the presidential election on 8 November, has been arrested and charged with planning to seize power by force.

Incumbent President Maaouiya Ould Taya (in office since 1984 and friend of the west) won the election with 67% of the vote, but is accused, you guessed it, of rigging the poll. Haidallah took 19% of votes and called for a re-run of the election, warning of a descent into civil war.

Steely determination

Finally, if the report in last week’s Diary about a potential United States-European Union trade war left you wanting more, then you’re in luck...

Things got a little nastier this week when the World Trade Organisation, to nobody’s surprise, decided that Bush’s controversial tariffs on imported steel are illegal.

The decision is another victory for the EU in its ongoing trade battles with the US. The US “disagrees” with the decision (a pretty meaningless statement) and plans to review the situation (i.e. save face).

Showing a great propensity for diplomacy, the WTO called the US steel tariffs “inconsistent” with free trade agreements.

The US, says EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, has until December to back down, otherwise retaliatory tariffs will be put into effect.

Asian steelmakers – such as Japan, China and South Korea – sent a similar warning to the US president.

The ball is in Bush’s court.

Quotes of the week

“The devil shouldn’t drag us to sympathise with those who speak in the name of Islam but whose actions are against Islam.”
Sheikh Saleh al-Sheikh, Saudi Arabia’s minister of Islamic affairs and the kingdom’s top Islamic cleric, on Saturday’s terrorist strikes.

“I’m acting as President Putin’s defence lawyer here, even though he hasn’t asked me to. In Chechnya, there has been terrorist activity that has produced many attacks against Russian citizens and there has never been an equivalent response from the Russian Federation. The truth is that there are often distortions in the press, in Italy as abroad. It’s the same thing as far as Chechnya and the Yukos story is concerned.”
Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi

“I hope that prime minister Berlusconi’s information on the state of affairs regarding the media in Russia is better than the one President Putin has been given of Italy.”
Romano Prodi, president of the European Commission

“The Commission position and insofar as we know the position of the member states is rather clear and not exactly the same.”
A classic from Reijo Kemppinen, spokesman for the EU Commission.

Contact the Diary Editor: Dominic.Hilton@openDemocracy.net