EDITORIAL
Understanding Bush's Mideast 'vision thing'
In what his aides called a "big picture" speech this week, President Bush outlined a vision for the Middle East that he said would directly result from the coming war with Iraq.
"A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region," he said.
Bush offers a benign domino theory of a joyous and free Iraq inspiring more of the same — one lucky country after the next, including a peaceful and equitable settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian mess.
This is an appealing scenario, one that you might think liberals would buy into, much as they supported Clintonian enterprises in the Balkans, Africa and Haiti that, with uneven results, battled genocide and famine and promised to promote democracy and prosperity.
The Afghan record
The difficulty with Bush's vision is that he already has a track record. If you wish to believe that he intends to do the sort of "nation-building" that the United States did in Germany and Japan following World War II, you must first explain why nothing of the sort is materializing in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan won't inspire many Iraqis to hope for American liberation. Its U.S.-supported regime governs tenuously in the capital, where it is considering reintroduction of sharia law.
Warlords, some with Indian, Russian or CIA support, contend for control of the countryside.
Pakistani intelligence services and religious parties reportedly are supporting fugitive Taliban and al-Qaida elements to prepare for a spring offensive in Afghanistan.
International financial support lags far behind promises.
It's not necessary to suppose that Bush intends extensive "nation-building" for Iraq, though, to accept that he believes "regime change" in Baghdad will indeed begin a profound transformation of the entire region.
Indeed, the neoconservative faction that includes Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has long made clear that it won't be Iraq's rosy future that drives this change, but rather Washington's powerful projection of naked force.
From its new base in Iraq, write faction members, U.S. forces would quickly coerce Syria, Iran and the Saudi royal family to shift support from religious radicals to secular democratization and economic reform. Stripped of support for its terrorist groups, the Palestinians would quickly be forced to make peace on Israeli terms. Islam itself would begin a process of modernization.
End justifies means?
To support this vision requires one to decide that the end justifies the means (including the likelihood of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilian casualties) and that the population of the region will easily accept imposition of Pax Americana for its own good.
Bush's speech Wednesday before a conservative think tank was the first time he has expounded at length on his vision for the Middle East. The more we hear, the more troubled we become.
