Building Democracies...Where We See Fit

Ideals and Realities Clash In Bush 'Freedom Agenda'

The timing of Bush's address on democracy to the U.N. General Assembly and the overthrow of a democratically elected government underlined the complexities and contradictions in his "freedom agenda." With the president's attention focused on the Middle East, the state of democracy elsewhere in the world does not rate as high on his priority list. In the case of Thailand, the situation is complicated by growing U.S. unease with the ousted prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra.

"The president's freedom agenda is inherently selective," said Thomas Carothers, head of the democracy project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "We care very much about democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, but . . . Thailand's just not part of the story, so this falls off the map a bit."

Thailand is hardly the only example. Bush strongly supports Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president who took power in a military coup, and plans to meet with him at the White House twice in the next week. Bush will also host Kazakhstan's president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, at the end of next week despite the suppression of opposition parties, newspapers and human rights groups in the oil-rich Central Asian republic.

The administration has likewise embraced autocratic leaders in such disparate places as Azerbaijan and Ethiopia while generally tempering criticism of anti-democratic policies in Russia and China. Even in the Middle East, Bush has treaded lightly in nudging allies such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia to reform.

On the other hand, the White House ratcheted up its pressure this month on the repressive government in Burma. After meeting with a dissident, Bush personally lobbied to get the U.N. Security Council to put Burma on the agenda last week for possible sanctions. And first lady Laura Bush hosted a roundtable at the United Nations on democracy in that country.

When the president talks about promoting democracy, as he did in New York on Tuesday, he focuses mainly on Iraq and Afghanistan. Some other countries that he once highlighted as success stories have been dropped from his speeches, most notably Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.

In Ukraine, the popular coalition that led the "Orange Revolution" of December 2004 has splintered and the new prime minister is the same one the street protests targeted. In Kyrgyzstan, the brother of the president who took office after the revolution of March 2005 has been accused of trying to frame an opposition leader by planting a heroin-filled wooden doll in his luggage.

The coup in Thailand poses the latest challenge to Bush's commitment to "ending tyranny in our world," as he vowed in his second inaugural address. Aides said yesterday that he did not mention the coup in his U.N. speech because they were still gathering information, but they did not explain why he said nothing later in the day as it became clear that the military had ousted Thaksin.

Comments

[Bob]

No, the problem we live in Bush's world, which makes any Pollyanna world look positively rational.

[Brian]

Why don't they just say it and stop demonizing those who aren't board.

Because we don't live in Pollyannaworld?

[Bob]

Then it is not democracy, but advantageous relationships that drives this administration. That's fine. Why don't they just say it and stop demonizing those who aren't board.

[Brian]

Given the actions of the Thaksin government, I think that it is premature to claim that this coup challenges Pres. Bush's (alleged) commitment to "ending tyranny in our world." The 1997 constituion is all but dead (though it's not the current gov't alone that is to blame for that).