President Bush's fine words about political repression in other parts of the world are bolstered best by liberty and justice in America's dealings.
Published November 10, 2003
Let's hope President Bush's excellent speech on democratic reform in the Middle East reaches its intended audience. Speaking to the National Endowment for Democracy Thursday, the president demanded change from our supposed allies, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as from adversaries Syria and Iran. In the process, he exposed the hypocrisy of U.S. policies that have indulged repressive regimes in the region for decades while paying lip service to democracy.
"Sixty years of Western nations' excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe," the president said, "because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty."
The regimes called to task by the president have a habit of suppressing unpleasant news, so word of the speech may not filter down to the masses. The Saudi and Egyptian elites got the message, though. The Saudi royal family, the president said, needs to give "the Saudi people a greater role in their own society." Egypt, he said, "should show the way toward democracy in the Middle East." Even those relatively polite nudges are unusual in the recent history of our government's one-sided relations with those countries.
To be meaningful, however, the president's words will have to be backed up with the credible threat of tough actions. Millions of people in the Middle East are cynical about Washington's democratic rhetoric because of our government's history of support for repressive regimes. Until now, Washington has been unwilling to disentangle from our intricate relationship with the Saudis, or to demand reforms in return for the $2-billion in aid we send to Egypt each year. The president's words also raise the stakes for our occupation in Iraq. Building a stable society there will be difficult enough; building a democratic one is a task of audacious ambition.
In asserting the universality of democratic values, the president pointed to four other dictatorships - in North Korea, Cuba, Myanmar and Zimbabwe - that he said "cannot hold back freedom forever." Our legitimate arguments with those repressive governments are bolstered when we demand reforms from friendly dictatorships as well.
In the end, we best advance freedom around the globe by upholding democratic principles at home. For that reason, much of the Bush administration needs to read the president's speech as closely as the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Egypt do. Given the excesses of the Patriot Act and other post-Sept. 11 measures that have compromised Americans' constitutional rights, President Bush and his attorney general should take to heart the speech's assertion that "stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty."
