DATE=11/14/2003

TYPE=ON THE LINE

NUMBER=1-01424

TITLE=A New Bush Doctrine?

INTERNET=Yes

EDITOR=OFFICE OF POLICY 619-0038

CONTENT= This show will run all weekend long

THEME: UP, HOLD UNDER AND FADE

Host: New freedom in the Middle East? Next, On the Line.

[music]

Host: President George W. Bush delivered a speech in November to the National Endowment for Democracy. He celebrated the success of countries from Eastern Europe to Latin America, to parts of Asia and Africa that have moved from dictatorship to democracy. Mr. Bush said that the time has come for the people of the Middle East to enjoy the same freedoms.

[Bush SOT]

"In many nations of the Middle East, countries of great strategic importance, democracy has not yet taken root. And the questions arise: Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom and never even to have a choice in the matter? I for one do not believe it. I believe every person has the ability and the right to be free.

Host: President Bush said that the successful transformation of Iraq could lead to new democratic freedoms for people throughout the region. Will coalition efforts in Iraq pave the way for democratic reforms in other Middle Eastern countries? I'll ask my guests: Jay Carney, deputy chief for the Washington Bureau of Time magazine; John O'Sullivan, editor of the National Interest magazine and Tony Haddad, president of the Lebanese-American Council for Democracy. Welcome. Thanks for joining us today.

Host: Jay Carney, in his speech, President Bush said that "The advance of freedom is the calling of our time." Is this a new doctrine for the United States?

Carney: Well, it's not a new idea but it is a new doctrine in practice, I mean it's certainly been an American ideal that progress around the world necessarily included democracy spreading around the world. But, it is certainly a transition from years and years, decades of the practice of foreign policy in the United States, where because of the Cold War and the conflict with the Soviet Union, we chose our democracy, we pushed democracy around the world depending upon how it affected the great game and the power struggle with the Soviet Union, which meant that we would be friends with a dictator if that dictator was an enemy of the Soviet Union. That was a cynical approach to foreign policy but a necessary one, I think, during the Cold War. This new doctrine is very Wilsonian in its idealistic vision of the way that…

Host: Wilsonian being?

Carney: Woodrow Wilson, the President of the United States in the 1920s through World War I who advanced and created the League of Nations and who had grand ideas about making the world safe for democracy, but in many ways was a failure because those visions were perhaps premature. I think this speech that the President gave was lovely as a piece of rhetoric and inspiring as a vision for the future. I think the problem we have with it in real time is that it's sort of window-dressing as a post-war explanation for why the U-S invaded Iraq, which was originally driven by the desire to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein's regime and weapons of mass destruction, because of the threat they pose to the United States and the rest of the world. Now because those weapons have not been found, the administration is sort of reaching other, new rationalizations for why we went in in the first place and it's to bring democracy to the Middle East.

Host: John O'Sullivan, is this just "window-dressing" for failure to find weapons of mass destruction?

O'Sullivan: I don't think it is just window dressing. I think that's part of it, though I would disagree, perhaps not disagree with Jay on one point. If you at all pay any attention to the ideas that this is driven by the neo-conservatives, this particular idea, spreading democracy in the Middle East has been a neo-conservative idea publicly advanced and debated for four or five years. So, I think that it has a longer ideological pedigree than simply the need to do something about Iraq, important though that is.

Host: Tony Haddad, Jay Carney says the U-S during the Cold War was not as vigorous in promoting democracy as when there were regimes that were important in helping to staunch the spread of the Soviet Union. Yet, in the war on terrorism, there are regimes that are clearly authoritarian, but are also allies in the war against terrorism in the region. How does this call for democratic revolution in the region affect the strategic interests of the U-S and its coalition in the war against terrorism?

Haddad: Well, the dictatorship was used by us for a stability factor. We figured that if a dictator was going to be there, it might as well be our dictator instead of being the Soviet Union's dictator, like Jay was saying. We came to realize that if you want to get rid of terrorism in that region -- and terrorism is not just about the Israeli-Arab issue, terrorism is about totalitarianism, is about dictatorship in that region. If you want to get rid of terrorism, truly, and I think the President realizes that, and the people around him realize that this is the way to go. A good friend of mine who used to be the prime minister of Lebanon said that in order for us to overcome terrorism -- and everybody was asking, especially after nine-eleven, is this thing winnable? And he said, "You have to implement the three "Ds"." The first "D" would be disarmament. Whether you go after these terrorist groups and tell them, "Look, we are the strongest." But then, there's the second "D" and the third "D", which are democracy and development. And that's how you're going to get rid of terrorism. That's how you're going to win the war. If you have democracy in that region, then those people that are telling all the groups saying "Look, we have Allah on our side and the only way you can change … Look at all those dictatorships, they're supported by the U-S." And that's why they hate us.

O'Sullivan: I'm broadly in sympathy with the President's aims and objectives, but it seems to me that the President and the people around this table are in danger of exaggerating the importance of the United States' in this. The United States is not responsible for keeping dictators in power around the world. It dealt with them, but those dictators were primarily the responsible for keeping dictators in power around the world. It dealt with them, but those dictators were primarily the responsibility of those countries themselves. It's not capable, the United States, powerful though it is, of installing democracy and walking away and seeing it up and running. It can assist indigenous movements toward democracy. In the case of Iraq, it has to establish a stable government before it does anything else. But democracy is fundamentally a "do it yourself" project. It has to emerge from the society itself, even though outsiders can assist and protect it.

Carney: This is, I think, the conflict with the speech. Xxx* Because you have a situation where the speech by itself is a noble and, I think deserving of a great deal of support. But within the context of Iraq, where instead of simply encouraging indigenous groups to push for democracy, encouraging authoritarian governments to hold elections and allow democracy to spread, we have set that aside and acted militarily and are now trying to do exactly what is a very difficult thing to do, which is install and create a democratic nation from the ground up in Iraq. And everything hinges on it. Even within the context of Bush's speech, the success of democracy spreading in the Middle East is contingent upon it succeeding in Iraq and that's a huge roll of the dice.

Host: Tony Haddad.

Haddad: We can't expect people to just come up and say, "Okay, we want democracy." I mean, look, we had Saddam Hussein under sanctions for twelve years. We had them contained for twelve years. We had three-hundred thousand troops amassed on his border and saying that "We're going to come in and take you out." And the guy still held on, he still oppressed his own people. We have to give the people a chance. And the only way we can give them a chance is by the United States saying "We want to give the people a chance." And you are right, we're not the ones who installed those dictators, but we are the ones who support those dictators and who turn the other way when there's a human rights violation. And that's something that we can not do any more and that's something that we have to do more by supporting the people just like you said, John; supporting the people that they are aspiring for democracy. What is democracy? It's not something that you can just commence and say "Okay, here's a democracy and we're leaving." Democracies we need to build. We need to educate and build a system in that region. You need to have a constitution. You need to have the rule of law. You need to have freedom of the press. You need to build all that up. You can't just come in one day and say, "Okay, we're giving you a democracy." Actually, we got caught in that when we first went to Iraq. We said, "Okay, now you can demonstrate." And look what happened with that.

O'Sullivan: I completely agree with that. And the history of Latin America, indeed, is a very serious warning here, because a lot of Latin American countries have model democratic constitutions. They're functioning democracies it seems. Then they get into hot water and the military takes over or there's a revolution and terrorism. And you'll find Brazil and Argentina, even Chile, ricocheting back and forth between democracy and dictatorship. Now, in order to prevent that happening, you're absolutely right, we have to, in a sense, elections are the final stage of a rather long, tortuous process, in which people first of all, have freedom of speech, freedom of association, in which you have newspapers, you have a developing middle class which is used to assuming authority in the workplace. And you need intermediate institutions, everything say from tiddlywinks clubs to well, I can't think of another example. And once you have all of those things in operation, then I think democracy in a sense doesn't have to be encouraged, you might say. It naturally develops in the society. But that implies -- this is what worries me here in Iraq -- rather a long process of tutelage. And the Americans at the moment, don't seem, the administration doesn't seem to be thinking in terms of a long period, but anxious to establish a government as quickly as possible and then perhaps withdraw to the barracks, even if there are barracks remaining in Iraq.

Host: Jay Carney, do you agree that there needs to be this long period of tutelage or do you think the administration's right to be pushing forward with the notion of "Well, let's get some elections going."

Carney: I think that a long period of tutelage, if you've gone down this road, committing yourself to building democracy in a nation where there was none prior to your arrival, then tutelage and a long period of it is necessary. However, the decision has clearly been made that we need to get out of Iraq as quickly as feasibly possible, to turn over as much security authority to the Iraqis as possible. Maybe create a transitional constitutional government before the transition is made to a full sovereign government in Iraq. That's clearly what's happening in Washington this week, with Paul Bremer, administrator of the coalition authority of Iraq coming back to Washington to consult with the President on ideas of how to speed up this transition. I think it's very worrying. And coming back just to the broader issue of the President's speech, okay, we've gone into Iraq with force. There's other nations in the Middle East where we have befriended dictatorships or authoritarian regimes. How do we influence those? For example, [Pervez] Musharraf in Pakistan has been a friend in the war on terror, more or less. Osama bin Laden is hiding out in Northwest Pakistan. If we were to go in there with troops to actually get Osama bin Laden, it would probably topple Musharraf's regime and we would probably get something worse. So, we tolerate the authoritarian nature of Musharraf's regime because we're afraid of losing him in power. But it's that kind of sort of realpolitik, pragmatic decision-making that has allowed dictators to stay in power for years and years and years in the region.

Host: Well, Tony Haddad, does that also apply to countries like Saudi Arabia that aren't known for their robust freedoms?

Haddad: Look, we turned the other way before, look where we are today. We have to find out if bombers are coming into another one of our cities. We can't turn the other way any more just because someone is giving us information about terrorism. We have to take them by their hands and say, "Look, you have to come in to the table. You have to start." And the Saudis are doing that right now. The Jordanians are doing that. And we have to, our friends -- and when we're pushing the Egyptians to do that. We have to tell our friends, if they are our friends, they have to come in and they have to get more human rights and they have to get freedom for the press and they have to get a judicial system. They have to be transparent. We can not let them just do what they're doing just because they're going to help us in the war on terrorism, because actually, they're not helping us. They're just preventing one act or two, but in the long run there's another bin Laden sitting in there and trying to plan how they're going to hit us in New York and Washington again, or any other city in the United States. So, our vision, the President's vision is right. We have to bring those people with their hands. Not all of them are going to survive this. They have the chance to do it though. I mean, these are people in power, they can treat their people right. And once they treat their people right, then people will probably say, look, they might elect them. But we have to guide them through that. And we have to guide them through democracy. And if they're truly our friends, it could be easier for us than just coming in and telling somebody like Saddam Hussein that "Now we have to be democratic." It's a lot easier to put pressure on the Jordanians and the Saudis and say, "Look, you've got to give more freedom to your people."

Host: How, John O'Sullivan, in the case of a country like Syria, does the U-S try to pursue democratic reforms?

O'Sullivan: Well, my feeling is, for the practical realpolitik reasons given by Jay, our leverage of direct pressure is limited. I think that we were hoping and I think that we're still hoping that if we successfully establish a democracy in Iraq, that will have a demonstration effect. The populations of neighboring countries like Egypt --

Host: How is that demonstration effect supposed to work?

O'Sullivan: It's as follows, really. Next door, you have a flourishing country. It's democratic, its people are free. You have a parliament, lively debate in the newspapers. The television programs you can see, in your neighboring, in your country, unless you're artificially prevented from doing so and the cross-border traffic brings tales of prosperity and stability. And why shouldn't the people in the next door country who are in very similar circumstances not feel that we deserve the same kind of thing. Now at that point, when you get local ferment and pressure, then I think, that's when the U-S can come in and say, "Look, we insist on no torture. We insist that you don't fire into crowds. We insist that you adopt, kind of, Queensberry rules [rules for a fair fight] toward dealing with the opposition. Then, you can begin the movement internally in all of these countries towards democracy. And that's the way I think it will work.

Carney: But there has to be some sort of "Or else" for the "We insist" part of it. And that is where the real test of this doctrine that the President laid out would come. Is he willing to have an "Or else" with Musharraf, an "Or else" with the Saudi regime, because the "Or else" is a big deal with the Saudis for example. Are we willing to jeopardize the flow of cheap oil from our main ally in the Gulf in pursuit of the cause of democracy in this important country? You know, no president prior to this one has been willing to do it and this president has not shown himself willing to do it thus far. And I'm not sure the American people would go along with it. But that would be a real test and proof that he means it.

O'Sullivan: But Jay, wouldn't you say that if your demands of the other country are relatively modest, things like: "Don't fire on the crowds." "Don't torture people." Then, they're more willing to make them in order to reveal whatever sanctions you're proposing?

Carney: I think you do have to do it gradually.

Haddad: But Jay is saying what if they [don't] do it? What are you going to do?

O'Sullivan: What if you don't do it?

Haddad: Let's say in Saudi Arabia, they fire on a crowd. What are you going to do? I mean, you tell them "Or else." What is the "Or else." We have to stand behind [what we say]. Look, it's not just about democracy, what we're trying to do. The President is right about spreading democracy, but not just because we want the people in Iraq or Syria or Lebanon to be democratic. It's in our national security interest to have these people democratic. Our troops are in Iraq right now because they're protecting our security more than anything else, because we were attacked here in the United States. And the only way you're going to get rid of terrorism is to have democracy in that region. And democracy you protect by having the middle class flourish. And that's a real stability in that region, having the middle class. And democracy and development have to go hand in hand because development is what's going to sustain democracy. And development, I mean, when people can have food on their tables and they can feed their family, that's when they can, what will make democracy work.

O'Sullivan: Nobody has mentioned so far the name "Turkey". Turkey's a very interesting case. It's not an Arab country but it is an Islamic country. The biggest Islamic country outside Indonesia, I think. Secondly, it's had a secular democracy of a rather rigid secularist kind since Kemal Ataturk. But it has never, it's population has never been completely comfortable because that rigid secularism meant that there could be no expression of Islamic sensibilities in public life. Now in the last five years, in the last ten years, this has been changing. And there is now an Islamic party in power. It wants membership of the European Union. It supports membership in NATO. It supports the Western Alliance. And at the same time, it wants to soften the very rigid prohibitions on women wearing head scarves in Parliament, for example. That the Kemalists established and have imposed for sixty years. I think that the example of Turkey is extremely important because effectively, you now have a democracy that's both secular, in fundamental terms, but also Islamic as well. And that's the kind of democracy, if it's going to flourish anywhere, which has got to be established in Iraq and subsequently, one hopes, Syria.

Host: Jay, in terms of this demonstration effect, Turkey borders the region. Has there been a demonstration effect from Turkey as it's made this democratic evolution?

Carney: Well, Turkey's a special case, in part because one thing that I think a lot of Americans probably don't understand, and I don't pretend to be an expert either, but we lump the whole region together and sort of throw Turkey into the mix because they're Islamic, but Turkey really does straddle Europe and the Middle East. Turks have a long and not necessarily positive history with a lot of the nations of the Middle East. In fact, one of the big issues that came up recently was the offer by Turkey to send troops to assist the U-S-led coalition in Iraq. A lot of Iraqis want nothing to do with Turkish troops. Not at least among the Kurds in the North who've been fighting with the Turks for centuries. Yes, it's a good example, and I think the progress being made on allowing a blend of secular government with an Islamist party is incredibly important. And we can only hope that the rigid secularists in Turkey don't try to squash that and fight it, because I think it's a positive sign to show that you can bring Islam into a functioning democracy and not have it clash. But there have to be other nations, Arab nations that follow this path.

Host: Tony Haddad, we've only got a couple of minutes left, but on the question of Iraq serving as an example, President Bush said that if the terrorists win in Iraq, then the idea of spreading democracy would have been thwarted. And is that true and has he put this idea at the mercy of the success of terrorists of doing suicide bombings?

Haddad: It is true, however, he used another example and that's an example that we all have to start with. Lebanon has a history of democracy. They have the system already in place. They had the free press. They had the judicial system. Now since they were taken over by the Syrians, now everything is off the table. But they have this rooted in the Lebanese people. Here is a country that we can start with and give us an example. Here is a country that has Christians and Muslims living together, that has a constitution that could make them live together and show the rest of the Arab world and the rest of the nations, the rest of the world, actually, that we can live together. That's an example that we can give. It's really like Tom Freedman said, they are hardwired for democracy in Lebanon. That's a country that we can start with and give it as an example. It's going to take a lot less time to have Lebanon work and that's how you can put some pressure on the Syrians if you want to say that.

Host: I'm afraid that's going to have to be the last word for today. We're out of time. I'd like to thank my guests for joining me: Jay Carney of Time magazine; John O'Sullivan of The National Interest; and Tony Haddad of the Lebanese-American Council for Democracy. For On the Line, I'm Eric Felten. You can send us your questions and comments at ontheline@ibb.gov