Slovak journalist Stefan Hrib recalls how the Soviet Union sought to depict President Reagan as "a servant of the military-industrial complex, a man who wanted war and scorned ordinary people." A lot of Democrats thought the same thing about him. But the people liberated from Soviet tyranny know better.
Once again, many Democrats find themselves thumbing their noses at freedom, cynically attacking the president's attempts to "impose" democracy on the Middle East. They roll their eyes when Bush promises "to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture."
But they're on the wrong side of history. Like it or not, the Bush doctrine is working. Take Syria, where the Bush administration is leaning on the authoritarian government to dismantle terrorist camps, stop funding Hezbollah and end its puppet rule of Lebanon. One more neoconservative wild-goose chase, right? Wrong. On Monday, Prime Minister Omar Karami of Lebanon resigned from office as thousands of protesters took to the streets demanding an end to Syrian domination. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Tuesday that troops could be pulled out of Lebanon in a matter of months.
The president's push for democracy in Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world, has also paid off. Against all expectations, Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled the country since the 1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat, says he'll allow contested elections for what The Economist magazine reckons to be the first time in Egypt's 5,000-year history.
And don't forget Palestine. Dominated for decades by authoritarian cronyism, Palestinians seem finally to understand that Israel and the United States will only play ball with legitimate, elected leaders. Doubters who think that Arab democracy will only bring Islamic fanatics to power need only look to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who has brought his people closer to peace in just a few months than Yasser Arafat did in decades.
The war in Iraq may be a tactical nightmare, but the Bush doctrine has ushered in a profound and propitious shift in the zeitgeist. Take it from Walid Jumblatt, the leader of the Lebanese resistance to Syria: "It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq." He acknowledges that many Arabs remain cynical about U.S. intentions in Iraq, but he says, "When I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, eight million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world."
It makes no sense to talk about "imposing" democracy on a nation. As Iraq's Shi'ite ruling coalition promises to demonstrate, Arabs can adapt democracy to reflect their own religion and culture. If illiterate Afghans can line up by the millions to cast the ballot, anyone can. If people will go to the polls in war-torn Iraq, they will anywhere.
The lesson of the 20th century is that anything is possible if America stands firm in its commitment to liberty. The defeat of fascism and communism may sound like jingoistic fairy tales, but they were real victories won with the blood and sweat of U.S. conviction.
Whatever mistakes his administration has made in Iraq, President Bush has succeeded in changing the terms of the debate in the Arab world. Under President Reagan, the United States faced a Hobson's choice between supporting the cruel regimes of Saddam Hussein and the Ayatollah Khomeini. Today, regimes throughout the Greater Middle East are forced to confront a third path: freedom.
Bush understands that the old policy of relying on authoritarian regimes to hold Islamic fundamentalists at bay no longer holds any water. "America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one," said the president in his recent inaugural address. Arabs can aspire to freedom once again.
"The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing," Jumblatt says. "The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it."
Nate Goralnik '06 is looking for trouble.
