More nations turn from democracy - officials blame Bush

[Gunit Hussein Sangh]

Freedom, President Bush likes to say, "is a gift of the Almighty." But much of the world now believes America's true view is that democracy should be imposed with the muzzle of a gun.

For the first time in a generation, the number of nations turning from autocracy to democracy is on the decline, and nonpartisan officials who work in this field blame Bush.

In Washington, promoting democracy is ever green; it is somewhere on the agenda for every president, Democrat or Republican. But Bush elevated it to a status not seen in decades. Some might question his motivation. After all, he hoisted his freedom agenda at about the time it became clear that no weapons of mass destruction were to be found in Iraq. Suddenly his Iraq policy changed. America would bring democracy to the Iraqi people, and they would serve as a balefire for the larger Middle East.

As everyone knows by now, the results have been disheartening. When Bush and his aides pushed for free elections in Egypt, the government imprisoned opposition candidates and beat up voters. In Lebanon, the administration persuaded Syria to pull its troops out of Lebanon - a good thing - and then pressed the Lebanese to hold elections. The result: an impressive showing by Hezbollah, the terrorist group. Now the Lebanese government has been unable to appoint a president since November.

In the Palestinian territories, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her aides served as campaign consultants to the utterly corrupt and incompetent Fatah Party and then expressed shock and dismay when Hamas, the irredentist terrorist group, won the election. That has brought a cascading series of inauspicious consequences.

And then there's Iraq. What more can anyone say?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/05/INKGVVSM4.DTL

Indeed ... what more can one say

[Peter1469]

The quest for democracy is Wilsonian.  It is pathetic.  The US national interest has nothing whatsoever with some other nation’s freedom.  This is my #1 complaint with Shrub.  Democracy is great (in the representative form) but no people have gained democratic rule without fighting for it.  You cannot impose it from without.  This is Shrub’s greatest failures as president- and the only one that I think will stick.   

If a people really want democracy (or a republic) they will take it.  If you cannot take it you don't deserve it. 

Those that cannot take it and complain about it deserve nothing but contempt. 

[Vermouth]

In 2005 and 2006, Rice traveled often to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, where she spoke frequently of the need for "reform and democracy," as she said after a meeting with the Egyptian foreign minister in Cairo two years ago. That same year, in Saudi Arabia, she and Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal "talked in detail about human potential, talked about how to enhance political participation, how to enhance the empowerment of women," she said.

In her most recent trip there, in August, the subject didn't come up. And in Cairo last month, Rice mentioned democracy only once - while explaining why she had issued an official waiver that allowed the United States to give Egypt $1.3 billion in military aid this year - even though the United States had found the government guilty of numerous, serious human rights abuses. Many of them were against Egyptians campaigning for democratic freedoms.

"We believe that this relationship with Egypt is an important one," she said. "The waiver was the right thing to do." Standing next to her, Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit looked triumphant.

They had a sound bite I think, and they wore it out.

Democracy is great (in the representative form) but no people have gained democratic rule without fighting for it.  You cannot impose it from without.

I agree.