Washington Post: Bush Unable to Pursue Democratization Agenda
By Daniel Hollingsworth
August 22, 2007 | Printer Friendly

An August 20, 2007 feature in the Washington Post by Peter Baker examines the inability of President George W. Bush to effectively pursue the pro-democracy agenda set forth forcefully in his second inaugural address.  Baker writes that Bush’s grand vision to end tyranny in the world was undermined by internal divisions within the administration and bureaucratic obstacles to the pursuit of such a goal, leaving the push for democracy in doubt.

An example of the disconnect between Bush and his government followed his June 5, 2007 speech at the Democracy and Security Conference in Prague.  Baker writes,

“In his speech that day, Bush vowed to order U.S. ambassadors in unfree nations to meet with dissidents and boasted that he had created a fund to help embattled human rights defenders.  But the State Department did not send out the cable directing ambassadors to sit down with dissidents until two months later.  And to this day, not a nickel has been transferred to the fund he touted.”

Baker writes that Bush’s democracy agenda ran up against “politics, inertia, rivalries and funding battles” common to Washington policymaking.  Inspired by The Case for Democracy by Natan Sharansky, Bush brought together his top policy aides and speechwriters to craft a strategy for aggressively promoting democracy around the world, expanding beyond his prior focus on the Middle East.  World events added to the momentum building in the White House – “Even as the speech was being developed, hundreds of thousands of orange-clad Ukrainians protested a stolen election and, as in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, forced the old regime out in a new vote the day after Christmas.”  However, sensing that the State Department may be uncomfortable with the “sweeping rhetoric” (of the Inaugural Address), the administration bypassed the usual consultation process on matters of foreign policy, instead meeting with conservative scholars in January of 2005.

The report notes that the ideological commitment to democracy has faced several progressively difficult challenges.  Soon after the inaugural address, elections in Iraq and successful popular demonstrations in Lebanon and Kyrgyzstan encouraged the push toward democracy without presenting major tradeoffs for the administration.  The earliest conflicts were between support for greater freedom in Russia, Egypt, and Uzbekistan and strategic interests related to each country.  Bush was most assertive in his discussions with Russian President Putin regarding the crackdown on dissent in the country, and Secretary of State Rice cancelled a trip to Cairo after Egypt arrested opposition leader Ayman Nour.  The “first tangible price paid for the focus on freedom” came when the U.S. offered restrained criticism of Uzbekistan’s deadly crackdown on protesters in Andijan; Uzbekistan responded by expelling American troops previously stationed at a base in the country.  Baker writes that the lack of an organized response to these scenarios prompted frustration within the government.  Joseph Muravchik, of the American Enterprise Institute and member of Rice’s democracy advisory panel, explained that “people at the State Department felt like they were groping around in the dark.”

The positive momentum that followed the inaugural address began to slow, and “by August [2005] came the pushback, as Russian officials warned authoritarian governments around the world that Bush wanted to foment revolutions as in Ukraine and Georgia.  Nongovernmental organizations promoting civil society were harassed and even kicked out.”  In Egypt, rigged elections empowered President Hosni Mubarak and Nour was again arrested.  Finally, the election of Hamas in the Palestinian election of January 2006 broke the back of the push for democracy, as “critics saw it as proof that the president’s democracy agenda was dangerously naïve.”  Baker adds, “Many now see that election as a turning point that emboldened internal resistance and left democracy advocates gun-shy.”

Subsequent episodes have demonstrated an uneven and more pragmatic push for democracy that “made the talk of democracy look phony and provided ammunition to the Kremlin” illustrated by Putin’s assertion that American support for democracy is self-interested.  “Vice President Cheney went to Lithuania to deliver the toughest U.S. indictment of Putin’s leadership.  But the next day, Cheney flew to oil-rich Kazakhstan and embraced its autocratic leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, with not a word of criticism.”  Baker also cites concerns over offending China and a lack of support for the Thai government overthrown by a military coup as evidence that the grand language of support for democracy has not been backed by consistent action.  Sharansky, the original inspiration for Bush’s pledge, concludes that “there is a gap between what he says and what the State Department does,” and that this failure lies in Bush’s inability to bring Washington together around the goal of democracy promotion.

Reference:

Washington Post: As Democracy Push Falters, Bush Feels Like a ‘Dissident’