- "[Bush announced] a 'new policy' which will no longer
excuse or accommodate dictatorships in the Muslim world."
-
- WASHINGTON -- President George
W. Bush on Thursday recast the argument for America's intervention in Iraq
as part of a "global democratic revolution", announcing a "new
policy" which will no longer excuse or accommodate dictatorships in
the Muslim world.
-
- In a sweeping speech to the National Endowment for Democracy
in Washington, Mr Bush portrayed himself as a champion of liberty setting
out a "forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East".
-
- His rhetoric was intended to echo that of Ronald Reagan,
the former president who mandated the endowment, when confronting the Soviet
Union 20 years ago.
-
- Mr Bush was speaking as a memorial service was held in
Iraq for the 15 US soldiers killed when a Chinook helicopter was shot down
by insurgents last Sunday.
-
- He made no mention of weapons of mass destruction or
the alleged threat Saddam Hussein posed to US national security, but instead
emphasised the importance of American sacrifice to the spread of freedom.
-
- "Iraqi democracy will succeed and that success will
send forth the news from Damascus to Tehran that freedom can be the future
of every nation," Mr Bush said.
-
- "The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of
the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution."
-
- Drawing a line under "60 years of western nations
excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East,"
Mr Bush expanded on the transformationalist agenda embraced by Condoleezza
Rice, his national security adviser.
-
- In August, Ms Rice set out US ambitions to remake the
Middle East, an argument championed by neo-conservatives eager to use American
power to advance democracy and free markets.
-
- The White House did not elaborate on Mr Bush's implicit
criticism of half a century of US foreign policy in the Muslim world, nor
the suggestion that fellow democracies in Europe had coddled cruel dictatorships
in the region. But, he said: "The United States has adopted a new
policy, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East."
-
- Mr Bush's speech came just before he signed legislation
authorising $87bn further funding for Iraq and Afghanistan, the largest
US programme of financial aid since the post-second world war Marshall
Plan.
-
- Just over seven months since Mr Bush stood on a US aircraft
carrier and addressed troops beneath a banner that said "Mission Accomplished",
the White House is making renewed efforts to defend the pre-emptive war
launched by Mr Bush.
-
- Opinion polls show that a minority of Americans now approve
of Mr Bush's handling of the Iraq war and nearly two thirds of people polled
by ABC News last month said the levels of US casualties were unacceptable.
-
- Mr Bush made swift mention of other regions of the world
where democracy is yet to take root, such as China. But he emphasised the
democratic progress in the Middle East, citing countries such as Bahrain,
Oman, Qatar, Morocco and Jordan.
-
- "The Saudi government is taking first steps toward
reform, including a plan for gradual introduction of elections," Mr
Bush said, in a brief reference to one of the most contentious countries
on the US foreign policy agenda.
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- © Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2003.
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