American Dream, Super-Sized
In his historic speech at the National Endowment for Democracy recently, President Bush embraced a new doctrine, a "formal strategy of freedom" in the Middle East -- and he did it just in the nick of time.
For although the war in Iraq is won, the peace has been lost, and that other Bush doctrine, the "preventive war" doctrine, is in disarray. The United States can neither withdraw with honor -- anarchy, civil war and renewed tyranny probably would result -- nor stay and fight on into a Vietnam-style quagmire, which is what the new Baathist-terrorist alliance is obviously hoping for. Bush's dilemma was evident in his Thanksgiving visit to Baghdad -- a couple of hours with his fortressed troops but not a minute with the "liberated" Iraqis.
The only alternative to withdrawal or quagmire is for the U.S. to succeed in its campaign for genuine democratization, which is the option the president has chosen. Unfortunately, he has done so without relinquishing preventive war or the faulty logic behind it.
The problem for the administration, already clear from the cries of "hypocrisy!" with which his "freedom strategy" is being met in some quarters, is that there is a startling gap between the president's welcome rhetoric about democracy and a policy that allows for unilateral invasion of other countries when the U.S. feels threatened, whether or not it has actually been attacked. It is this tension between democratization and preventive war that is at issue in Iraq.
Bush noted in his speech that democracy spread in the late 20th century because dictatorships collapsed from within or were overthrown by people demanding their liberty, just as the United States seized its freedom from the British in the 18th century. Yet in Iraq, the U.S. is trying to impose democracy at the barrel of a gun. But we cannot logically be an ardent advocate of the internal struggle for democracy and at the same time assert our unilateral right to invade enemies of our own choosing.
Bush urges the Saudis and Egyptians to press for democracy, but Washington continues to arm and fund undemocratic governments in both countries because they are putative allies in the war on terrorism. The president speaks of a "forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East," but anti-terrorist tactics mandate strategic alliances with tyrants -- on the model of U.S. support for Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, when Iran was the greater enemy. The U.S. must make up its mind: Are we to be friends of democracy or friends of the enemies of our enemies?
