Bush: Screwing Democracy All Around the World
Posted by
Kevin
Undercutting Mideast Democracy (washingtonpost.com)
But how to explain the administration’s other contrarian policy decision — its growing embrace of one of the Arab world’s most unreconstructed autocrats, Moammar Gaddafi?At a recent meeting on democratic change in the Middle East, I heard an Arab with impeccable reformist credentials angrily demand to know why every recent speech on the Middle East by President Bush seemed to contain a bouquet for Libya’s strongman. This would-be democratizer, who asked me not to identify him because of his official position, pointed out that Gaddafi represents everything the Bush initiative is meant to be against. He is a massive violator of human rights and a dictator who grooms his children to succeed him. He seeks the same devil’s bargain with the United States that Arab autocrats have always cut: Ignore my domestic thuggery, and I’ll sell you oil and cooperate with your foreign policy.
Bush has sworn off such deals — yet two weeks ago he lifted economic sanctions against Libya, allowing U.S. oil companies to return, in exchange for Gaddafi’s promise to give up weapons of mass destruction. The Arab official was contemptuous: Libya’s aging mustard gas and disassembled centrifuges weren’t likely to pose a serious threat to the United States, he argued. But Bush’s embrace of Gaddafi would warm the heart of other Arab presidents-for-life, who would conclude that Washington’s demand for change could be easily bought off.
