THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VIII, Issue # 89, May 27, 2006
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
THE TYRANNY DOCTRINE
By Danielle Pletka & Michael Rubin
UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY & THE BUSH DOCTRINE: FAILURE OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION TO IMPLEMENT
ITS STATED POLICY OF PROMOTING THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY & CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY IN
FOREIGN LANDS -- CONDONING POLITICAL REPRESSION & TYRANNY IN SUCH NATIONS AS EGYPT, LEBANON, LIBYA,
CHINA, & NORTH KOREA -- TOLERATING & CODDLING TYRANNICAL DICTATORIAL POLITICAL REGIMES, GIVING THEM
LEGITIMACY, & DISCOURAGING POLITICAL DISSENT
FULL STORY:
Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced resumption of full U.S. diplomatic relations with Libya, citing
Tripoli's renunciation of terrorism and intelligence cooperation. This ends a quarter-century diplomatic freeze. It also marks an
effective end to the Bush Doctrine.
At his second inauguration, U.S. President George W. Bush declared:
"The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends
on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for
peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the
world."
Since that soaring pronouncement, the Bush administration has watched Egypt abrogate elections, ignored the collapse of the
socalled Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, and abandoned imprisoned Chinese dissidents; now Washington is mulling a peace
treaty with Stalinist North Korea.
The rhetoric of constitutional democracy, it turns out, comes more easily than its implementation. Washington worries that
Egypt will bow out of the fight against Al-Qa'ida, if the U.S.A. presses for reform. It worries that China will bar investment, if
Bush presses for the release of political prisoners. Are these fears realistic? No. These countries still have interests that parallel
ours. But that won't be clear, unless the U.S. President forces the tyrants to make a choice: reform or face isolation.
The case of Fathi El Jahmi, Libya's foremost liberty and democracy activist, is among the most poignant. When El Jahmi was
briefly furloughed from prison in 2004, Bush hailed his release as a sign of change in Libyan strongman Moammar Kadafi. But
El Jahmi's freedom lasted just two weeks, and his name hasn't passed the President's lips again. Rice's announcement
welcoming Libya back into the fold of civilized nations mentioned neither constitutional democracy nor El Jahmi.
In Egypt, where only last year Rice made herself a heroine to reformers by demanding competitive elections, the government
has accelerated repression. It has imprisoned Ayman Nour, the leading opposition leader, on spurious charges. Where once
the Bush administration threatened to withhold aid and won the release of a prominent liberty and democracy advocate, it is
now silent. In early May, 2006, Egyptian police rounded up hundreds of demonstrators rallying in support of two judges who
said that parliamentary elections were rigged. Yet Washington does not seek to reduce Egypt's $1.8 billion in annual aid.
Instead, this month it hosted President Hosni Mubarak's son (and anointed successor).
Pressure for changes also has lessened in Syria and Lebanon. In March, 2005, in the wake of the assassination of former Prime
Minister Rafik Hariri, the Lebanese people rose up to demand democracy and reform. The Bush administration cheered, but it
soon lost interest. A July, 2005, visit to Beirut by Rice, replete with the "obligatory" meeting with the puppet Lebanese
President installed by Syria, sowed doubt about the U.S. commitment to Lebanese independence. Washington's blunders have
ensured that a Syrian stooge will likely govern Lebanon for another year.
The same devotion to form over substance has been apparent in our China policy. Before his 2005 visit, Bush asked for the
release of several political prisoners, including a New York Times researcher, Zhao Yan. The Chinese government
ignored the request. The same polite query went to Beijing before President Hu Jintao's April, 2006, visit to Washington. This
time, Zhao was released, only to be indicted again once Hu's world tour was complete. Signs of White House displeasure? Not
one.
Is it possible that the Bush administration is questioning the wisdom of promoting constitutional democracy as a longterm
solution to U.S. national security woes? Foreign policy "realists" suggest that the President has finally woken up and smelled
the coffee. They say democracy gave us an Islamist government in Iraq and Hamas in Palestine. It could give us the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt. Heaven knows what it would spawn in China or Libya. Better the devil you know.
But there is no sign the White House has done any strategic rethinking. The President continues to believe his own preaching,
but his administration has become incapable of making the hard choices those beliefs require. Instead, it has been quick to
embrace the showy, if transitory, political advantages that come from welcoming Kadafi into the family of nations and China's
President on a tour of Boeing.
The many foreign dissidents and reformers who took Bush at his word are the first to pay the price for Washington's lack of
backbone. They were told that, if they took risks for freedom, the U.S.A. would stand with them. Letting them down will make it
all the more difficult to find constitutional democratic allies. Brave individuals are the real building blocks for transitions to
constitutional democracy. Without them, as we have learned in Iraq, there are few alternatives to the tyranny that threatens us
all.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
The Middle East -- Lebanon as a Geopolitical Problem
The Middle East & the Problem of Syria
North Africa -- The Arab States of Islamic North Africa
Egypt, Arabs, & the Middle East
The Far East & U.S. Foreign Policy
U.S. National Security Strategy
Danielle Pletka is Vice President for Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy
Research. Ms. Pletka's areas of research and analysis include the Middle East, South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan),
terrorism, and weapons proliferation. In her capacity as the American Enterprise Institute's expert on Iraq, Pletka has developed
a series of conferences on rebuilding post-Saddam Iraq, as well as a project designed to promote constitutional democracy in
the Arab world. From 1992 to 2002, she was a senior professional staff member for Near East and South Asia with the United
States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, where she was Chief Aide to Senator Jesse Helms. Prior to working with the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Pletka was a staff writer for Insight Magazine (1987-1992) and a editorial assistant
with the Los Angeles Time and Reuters, in Jerusalem (1984-1985).
Dr. Michael Rubin, a Ph.D. in History (Yale University) and a specialist in Middle Eastern politics, Islamic culture and Islamist
ideology, is Editor of the Middle East Quarterly and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public
Policy Research. Dr Rubin is author of Into the Shadows: Radical Vigilantes in Khatami's Iran (Washington Institute
for Near East Policy, 2001) and is co-author, with Dr. Patrick Clawson, of Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2005). Dr. Rubin served as political advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad (2003-2004); staff
advisor on Iran and Iraq in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense (2002-2004); visiting lecturer in the Departments of
History and International Relations at Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2001-2002); visiting lecturer at the Universities of
Sulaymani, Salahuddin, and Duhok in Iraqi Kurdistan (2000-2001); Soref Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy (1999-2000); and visiting lecturer in the Department of History at Yale University (1999-2000). He has been a fellow at
the Council of Foreign Relations, the Leonard Davis Institute at Hebrew University, and the Carnegie Council on Ethics and
International Affairs.
The foregoing article by Danielle Pletka was originally published in the Los Angeles Times, May 26, 2006, and can be
found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum.
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
May 26. 2006
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