I thought, too, that there was a real change of style in Bush's speech. He was almost eloquent. A week ago he looked an exceedingly worried man with deep lines across his forehead. Now, he's seems almost triumphant. Now that I've stuck my neck out I think he is feeling real relief that they've decided on a way out of their impossible impasse. Now that he realised that the US and UK oil corporations can sit on their hands for 10/15 years before they need to develop the Iraqi oilfields (if they get the chance to), there's no point in Bush staying any longer. There's no way he can form any form of respectable democratic constitution and satisfy all the Iraqi schisms, so he's decided to go. He'll even have the chutzpah to say that he's saved young American lives when he does so.
As it happens -- even if he does get out of Iraq triumphally in the next two/three months and show the American people what a statesman he's been -- I still think he'll be ditched by a failing economy. But no matter, at the present time, he must be feeling a ot more confident about the economy because most economic journalists (and economists for all I know) are still knocked-off their objectivity perch by the last quarter's growth figures which -- apparently -- augur well for a jobs pick-up.
I still think that all will turn out very badly for him on both counts and he'll be despised as having been the worst president for a very long time, including Nixon.
Keith
At 09:01 07/11/2003 -0800, you wrote:
Personally, I was relieved to hear a better speech than usual from Bush, making good use of semantics designed to revitalize the disgruntled taxpayer. As we enter the holiday season, what could be more effective with voters than appealing to a higher mission and raising the spirit of democracy? However, even as this commentary today dissects the reality from the rhetoric, only half the domestic audience believes even his rare good speeches are genuine.
Its really too bad, but former oilmen and a Cabinet of corporate CEOs with business acumen really dont have the credibility to claim statesmanship ambitions in the Middle East after making their real agenda so transparent. Like bank robbers now claiming to be priests, they needed to have been more convincing of their conversion to higher callings by their actions.
His major strength is the military and economic power we wield, and that, too, he has squandered. Looking at the horizon, he doesnt need to return to Congress for more Iraq $ until after Nov 2004. What he needs now is real improvement in the Hades that is Israel and Palestine and to capture either of the two Most Wanted terrorists. You can easily bet whats on his Santa wish list.
I applaud his verbal recognition to Islams values in this speech, suspecting that it will cause him grief among Christian Zionists who believe only one religion can be tied to democracy. - KWC
As usual, bold highlights are mine. Link is live.
Idealism in the Face of a Troubled Reality
By Robin Wright, Washington Post Staff Writer, Friday, November 7, 2003; Page A01
In a speech that redefined the U.S. agenda in the Middle East, President Bush waxed eloquent yesterday about his dream of democracy coexisting with Islam and transforming an important geostrategic region that has defiantly held out against the global tide of political change. But Bush failed to acknowledge the tough realities that are likely to limit significant political progress in the near future: the United States' all-consuming commitment to fighting a global war on terrorism and confronting Islamic militancy. Washington still relies heavily on alliances with autocratic governments to achieve these top priorities.
The president's vision was an attempt to wrap together major U.S. goals in the Islamic world -- new governments in Iraq and Afghanistan, an Arab-Israeli peace, as well as political and economic openings in a wide swath of countries from North Africa to South Asia -- under the wider rubric of promoting democracy. Bush pledged new momentum to foster broad change comparable to the end of communism in Eastern Europe.
"The United States has adopted a new policy: a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. This strategy requires the same persistence and energy and idealism we have shown before. And it will yield the same results," he vowed in a speech marking the 20th anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy.
The speech was clearly aimed at putting troubled Iraq into a more acceptable context for a domestic audience alarmed by the mounting attacks and the now daily troop deaths there. But for a foreign audience, the president did send an important new signal by criticizing decades of Western inaction in the Middle East.
"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," Bush said. "As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment and violence ready for export. And with the spread of weapons that can bring catastrophic harm to our country and to our friends, it would be reckless to accept the status quo."
In an unusual move, the president even cited key allies, notably Egypt, that should foster greater change. "He named names, which he hasn't in the past, and it's vital to do that as the audience in the region needs to know there's an address for his words, namely the Saudi royal family and [Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak," said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director of Human Rights Watch. Bush basically "threw down the gauntlet to Egypt," one of the two largest recipients of U.S. aid and a stalwart ally, which is likely to infuriate Mubarak, said Hisham Melhem, an Arab journalist and commentator.
In a move that may gradually resonate in Muslim countries, Bush heralded Islam as a force compatible with democracy. "It should be clear to all that Islam, the faith of one-fifth of humanity, is consistent with democratic rule," Bush said. "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."
The words were striking in the context of 25 years of tensions between the United States and various Islamic movements. For half a century, U.S. policy has implicitly accepted the concept of "Islamic exceptionalism" -- that Islam and democracy are basically incompatible and that Islam cannot be a vehicle for political reform.
"Saying the status quo is unacceptable is revolutionary," Melhem said. For Muslims, the U.S. legacy on political systems in the Middle East has been most starkly defined by the U.S. intervention in Iran to oust a nationalist movement to put the shah back on the throne in 1953 and by the U.S. failure to act, or even condemn the military, when Algerian generals aborted democratic elections in 1991. But as a result, Washington has a long-standing credibility problem -- and the administration will need to take concrete steps to prove it intends to follow through in ways earlier administrations did not. Bush's speech was short on specifics.
"In the past, every time a U.S. official has talked about democracy and responsible government, people in the region have looked at them and said, 'You're running against a 50-year legacy of doing the opposite.' We grew up understanding that the United States would not tolerate real democracy as we'd end up with governments or leaders or ideologies that were not compatible with the West," Melhem added.
Major democratic change is also likely to prove elusive until the administration is able to stabilize the region's flash points, which have led Washington to perpetuate its reliance on governments willing to use repressive tactics to crack down on either militants or anti-U.S. forces.
"By and large, administration after administration ultimately chooses national security priorities over democracy and discovers more often than not that it's not a trade-off," said Shibley Telhami, a Brookings Institution fellow who also holds the Anwar Sadat chair in peace and development at the University of Maryland.
In a broad assessment of the region, the president inflated the progress toward democracy made by allies such as Saudi Arabia that are harshly criticized for their abuses in the annual U.S. human rights report, while he criticized countries such as Iran that have made some inroads but do not have good relations with Washington.
"His portrayal of what's going on in Arab countries is totally unrealistic," said Marina Ottaway, co-director of the Democracy and Rule of Law Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The reality that he is overlooking is that in all these countries that are supposedly making progress, hostility to the United States is at an all-time high," she said. "So the idea that these are countries where progress on democracy is going to make them better allies is certainly not supported by what is going on."
Keith wrote: One can't help feeling intensely suspicious of the apparent change of heart
of Bush when he announces that he wants to bring democracy to the Middle
East and that this was what his invasion of Iraq was all about. This,
despite the US being close allies of dictatorships in Saudi Arabia for 50
years and even with Saddam Hussein himself for 15 when encouraging him to
wage years of warfare on Iran. No longer, it would seem, did Bush invade
Iraq because of international terrorism, nor because of Weapons of Mass
destruction. (The Special Task Force of 2,000 American troops which have
apparently been searching for WMDs for months have not turned up anything
yet. WMDs were never there in the first place, as the UN Inspectors
believed, and as further recent evidence suggests -- see the article below.)
The US death toll reported in today's Independent article below (142) has
already been augmented this morning by another four soldiers killed in a
downed helicopter and possibly two more in other incidents on the roads.
For electoral reasons a year from now, Bush may now already be deciding to
leave well before next summer. One or two particularly dramatic terrorist
attacks could cause the American electorate to swing ferociously against
Bush at almost any time from now onwards.
Of course, some believe, including the present writer, that Bush invaded
Iraq in order to ensure that US and UK oil corporations would be able to
develop the immense northern oilfields from which Saddam had mischievously
excluded them. But, in the biggest mistake that Bush (or, probably, Cheney)
made, these corporations refuse to be involved until there's a legitimate
Iraqi government in place and not the American-imposed Coalition
Provisional Authority.
Two or three more speeches along the lines that Bush has just made would
allow him to segue right out of Iraq -- throwing it a constitution and
holding an election along the way which will ensure a Shia majority. If he
makes sure that the Shias have sufficient well-armed forces at their
disposal, this ought to ensure that the previous oppressors, the Sunnis,
will be subjugated (or chased into Syria) and, if and when Saddam emerges
from hiding, he will be quickly caught and executed.
This scenario may seem unlikely -- even absurd at the moment -- but I don't
see any other way out of Bush's predicament and possible humiliating defeat
next November. He's not gained what went to Iraq for -- WMDs or oil -- so
he might as well leave now as craftily as he can. He's been able to con
most of the American electorate so far, so he ought to be able to swing
this new strategy across them as a piece of international statesmanship in
the name of bringing democracy to one more country.
Just one postscript for non-UK readers: there are likely to be large
demonstrations against Bush when he arrives. The usual state procession
down the Mall has already been cancelled and it's exceedingly unlikely that
Bush will be able to show his face in public in the usual way.
<<<<
BUSH CALLS IRAQ MISSION 'WATERSHED FOR GLOBAL DEMOCRACY'
Rupert Cornwell
Washington -- Less than two weeks before what may be a stormy state visit
to London, President George Bush yesterday cast himself as a new Ronald
Reagan, vowing to bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East and beyond
-- just as Mr Reagan did with the Soviet Union, in his "evil empire"
address to the British Parliament 21 years ago.
Speaking on the day he signed into law the Bill authorising $87 billion of
extra funding for Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr Bush set out his vision of a
modernised and democratic Iraq serving as example throughout the region.
Separately, administration officials confirmed that they had received a
behind-the-scenes proposal, supposedly from Saddam Hussein, offering a deal
last March to stave off the looming war. But the contact was rebuffed by
the CIA.
Though experts said the move may have been of little significance, critics
presented the episode as further proof that Mr Bush would let nothing
interfere with his determination to go to war.
In his speech yesterday Mr Bush once again made no reference to mounting US
casualties in Iraq, including two more fatal attacks yesterday, bringing to
142 the death toll since he declared the end of major combat operations.
Nor did he refer to the strains on the military, and yesterday's Pentagon
announcement that 132,000 troops and reservists will be sent to relieve
units who have been in the region for a year. Instead he stressed that
failure in Iraq would embolden terrorists around the world, but "the
establishment of a free Iraq will be a watershed event in the global
democratic revolution."
That, clearly, is the message he will deliver during his address to an
audience of dignitaries in London on 19 November, the centrepiece of his
state visit. And his references to the dismissive reaction to Mr Reagan's
speech in Westminster Hall left no doubt that he is expecting more of the
same for himself. "It seems hard to be a sophisticated European and also an
admirer of Ronald Reagan," Mr Bush yesterday quoted from a newspaper
editorial of the time, recalling how some observers had pronounced the
"evil empire" speech to be "simplistic and naive, and even dangerous". In
fact the current unpopularity of Mr Bush and his administration -- widely
perceived in Europe as high-handed, arrogant and ignorant -- eclipses that
of Mr Reagan in 1982, at the height of the Cold War. But Mr Bush stressed
he would not be deterred.
Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of
freedom in the Middle East had done nothing to make the world safer, the
President told the National Endowment for Democracy here. "It would be
reckless to accept the status quo," he declared, defending his doctrine of
preemptive action as "a forward strategy of freedom". He attacked the
"outposts of oppression" in Cuba, Zimbabwe, North Korea and Burma, but
praised Morocco and other Arab states such as Yemen, Bahrain and Jordan,
who are gingerly taking steps towards democracy. He called on Egypt and
Saudi Arabia to move faster along the path of reform, and delivered
familiar tirades against leaders in Iran and Palestine who were blocking
their peoples' aspirations to freedom.
The Independent -- 7 November 2003
>>>>
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, <www.handlo.com>, <www.property-portraits.co.uk>
