As we watch the growing demand that Middle East autocrats and
dictators step down, from Iran in June 2009 to Egypt and Libya this
February, on the heels of repeated elections in post-Taliban
Afghanistan and post-Saddam Iraq, the wisdom of two presidents
keeps coming to mind.
First is Ronald Reagan, who warned dictators that freedom
is “contagious.” As he noted in May 1982, the Soviets feared the
“infectiousness” of the freedom posed by groups like Solidarity in
Poland. Eight years later, with elections held in Poland and the
wall down in Berlin, Reagan, no longer president, observed: “As is
always the case, once people who have been deprived of basic
freedom taste a little of it, they want all of it.” Looking back at
the impact of Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms, he remarked: “It was as
if Gorbachev had uncorked a magic bottle and a genie floated out,
never to be put back in again.”
As president, Reagan had spoken of a “march of freedom”
that would leave Marxism-Leninism on the “ash-heap of history.” He
said this often, but most memorably in his June 1982 Westminster
speech, which also founded the National Endowment for
Democracy.
That brings me to the other president. The president who
picked up Reagan’s mantle from Westminster was George W. Bush.
Speaking to the National
Endowment for Democracy in November 2003, Bush gave the most
important address of his presidency, promising to extend Reagan’s
“march” into the Middle East, the place most resistant to the
freedom tide. What Bush said cannot be reiterated enough, and
couldn’t be more appropriate than right now, as the next target by
the people of the Middle East is the hideous Muammar Gaddafi; from
the Taliban, to Saddam, to Ahmadinejad, to Mubarak, to
Gaddafi.
Did George W. Bush foresee this? Like Reagan, he tended to
speak more generally, but he was specific enough that we can say
that Bush would not be surprised at current events. Bush began his
November 2003 speech with this:
In June of 1982, President Ronald Reagan spoke at Westminster
Palace and declared the turning point had arrived in history….
President Reagan said that the day of Soviet tyranny was passing,
that freedom had a momentum which would not be halted. He gave this
organization its mandate: to add to the momentum of freedom across
the world. Your mandate was important 20 years ago; it is equally
important today.
A number of critics were dismissive of that speech by the
President…. Some observers on both sides of the Atlantic pronounced
the speech simplistic and naive, and even dangerous. In fact,
Ronald Reagan’s words were courageous and optimistic and entirely
correct.
And if the critics needed data to back that assertion, Bush
offered it: “The great democratic movement President Reagan
described was already well underway. In the early 1970s, there were
about 40 democracies in the world…. As the 20th century ended,
there were around 120 democracies in the world.”
Dramatically and emphatically, Bush continued that last
sentence with this unequivocal prediction on democracies: “— and I
can assure you more are on the way.”
Bush noted that the world had witnessed, in little over a
generation, “the swiftest advance of freedom in the 2,500 year
story of democracy.” And while future historians would debate the
reasons for that surge, Bush had his own, one that was also a
motivation: “It is no accident that the rise of so many democracies
took place in a time when the world’s most influential nation was
itself a democracy.” That was George W. Bush’s way of saying that
America, at least America under his administration, would do its
best to advance that freedom.
The 43rd president, likewise dismissed by critics, then
shared his theoretical — even theological — understanding of how
this could happen, including in places like the Middle East,
pockmarked by military dictatorships:
Over time, free nations grow stronger and dictatorships grow
weaker…. Liberty is both the plan of Heaven for humanity, and the
best hope for progress here on Earth.
As the colonial era passed away, the Middle East saw the
establishment of many military dictatorships. Some rulers adopted
the dogmas of socialism, seized total control of political parties
and the media and universities. They allied themselves with the
Soviet bloc and with international terrorism….
Other men, and groups of men, have gained influence in the
Middle East and beyond through an ideology of theocratic
terror….
Many Middle Eastern governments now understand that military
dictatorship and theocratic rule are a straight, smooth highway to
nowhere…. Instead of dwelling on past wrongs and blaming others,
governments in the Middle East need to confront real problems….
Governments across the Middle East and North Africa are beginning
to see the need for change.
Now that’s “change” you can believe in. In this section of the
speech, Bush called out, by name, Iraq, Syria, the Taliban, but
clearly was also referring to the likes of Gaddafi.
Then came these statements, directed explicitly at Iran
and Egypt:
As changes come to the Middle Eastern region, those with power
should ask themselves: Will they be remembered for resisting
reform, or for leading it? In Iran, the demand for democracy is
strong and broad…. The regime in Tehran must heed the democratic
demands of the Iranian people…. The great and proud nation of Egypt
has shown the way toward peace in the Middle East, and now should
show the way toward democracy in the Middle East.
Next, George W. Bush made a statement that every liberal
ought to love. He pointed the finger at America and the West for
“sixty years” of “excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in
the Middle East,” which “did nothing to make us safe” and came “at
the expense of liberty.”
So, what should America do? Here, Bush applied Reagan’s
words at Westminster, as well as a similar phrase Reagan used
elsewhere: a “forward strategy of freedom.” Stated Bush:
“Therefore, the United States has adopted a new policy, a forward
strategy of freedom in the Middle East. This strategy requires the
same persistence and energy and idealism we have shown before. And
it will yield the same results. As in Europe, as in Asia, as in
every region of the world, the advance of freedom leads to
peace.”
Bush said that this advance of freedom was nothing short
of “the calling of our time; it is the calling of our
country.”
Brace yourselves, liberals and conservatives alike: Bush
then echoed Woodrow Wilson, FDR, and Reagan: “From the Fourteen
Points to the Four Freedoms, to the speech at Westminster, America
has put our power at the service of principle.” What principle was
that? Bush wrapped up with the signature statement of his
presidency: “We believe that liberty is the design of nature; we
believe that liberty is the direction of history…. And we believe
that freedom — the freedom we prize — is not for us alone, it is
the right and the capacity of all mankind.”
Upon close reflection, it is self-evident that this was a
profound speech with major application to current events, even as
the vast majority of pundits and journalists don’t even know about
it.
Did George W. Bush think this freedom tide would swell
during his lifetime? My estimation is that, like Reagan, he did not
expect it to happen quickly. Also, he would be very concerned about
autocrats being supplanted not by Muslim democrats but by Muslim
theocrats.
Of course, that’s the overriding concern. We hope the wave
— the “march” — is toward democracy, not theocracy. We want
Solidarity, not the Muslim Brotherhood. We want movements closer to
Madison, not the Taliban. That’s the huge historical unknown that
remains to be played out.
Still, for now, the people of the Middle East —
comprising all sorts of factions — are demanding the autocrats and
despots step down. There is a yearning for freedom.
Like Reagan, Bush understood the power of that freedom,
and that once freedom was uncorked, out of the bottle, it was
contagious.
The great tragedy with President Bush, compared to
President Reagan, is that the Left managed to so destroy him that
his two terms were followed not by a like-minded president who
understood his global vision and could help secure what he started,
but by the one Democratic presidential candidate who disagreed most
staunchly — who, frankly, didn’t get it. That’s the fault of two
groups: the angry Left and the oblivious, duped moderates and
independents that elected Barack Obama.
All we can do now is hope and pray that Obama somehow gets
this right, and that he does nothing impede history’s march of
freedom and its next steps — hopefully — through the Middle
East.
