Posted on: Monday, November 10, 2003

EDITORIAL
Bush suggests new Mideast approach

The United States may be on the brink of a welcome and revolutionary change in its foreign policy.

In a speech Thursday, President Bush called for an end, in the Middle East at least, to the odious practice of propping up dictatorships out of shortsighted security concerns.

"Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe," Bush said, "because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty."

Bush called upon Iran and Syria, as well as two Middle East allies, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, to begin embracing democratic institutions, adding that dictatorships in North Korea, Myanmar, Cuba and Zimbabwe were living on borrowed time.

Bush risks accusations of hypocrisy from his critics as the United States continues to guzzle Saudi oil, contributes $2 billion a year in aid to Egypt, fails to criticize Israel for building its divisive "fence" and holds without charge or counsel more than 600 Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

But a new policy has to start somewhere. Bush suggests that place is regime change in Iraq, "a watershed event in the global democratic revolution."

Some might argue that democratic traditions best evolve from within, but the rise of Germany and Japan from the ashes of World War II are splendid exceptions and welcome examples of how this can work. And Bush argued last week that passage by Congress of his request for $87 billion in military and rebuilding aid for Iraq and Afghanistan was "the greatest commitment of its kind since the Marshall Plan."

Bush and his aides have presented an appealing picture, a sort of reverse domino theory, of one Middle Eastern nation after another democratizing, following the new Iraq. That picture is muddied by confusion over White House motives in invading Iraq, and by unexpectedly severe difficulties in delivering that country's bright new future.

There is no question, however, that a thirst for democracy thrives in the Middle East. During the past year, the Arab Human Development Report, a survey prepared by a group of regional scholars and policy analysts under the auspices of the United Nations, has been downloaded more than 1 million times from the Internet, making it one of the most popular Arab works ever produced.

Regional enthusiasm for this report suggests that Bush may have in his hand the key to unlock the region's resistance to its own potential. The rhetoric is welcome indeed, and now must be followed by deeds.