-- Was Bush right after all? As Syria pulls out of Lebanon, and the winds of change blow through the Middle East, this is the difficult question that opponents of the Iraq war are having to face By Rupert Cornwell in Washington 08 March 2005 Trucks carrying Syrian soldiers began to file out of Beirut yesterday. As they departed, Syria's President, Bashar Assad, under intense pressure from the US, promised to withdraw all 14,000 troops to eastern areas of Lebanon by the end of this month. The White House almost immediately dismissed the plan as failing to set a deadline for total withdrawal from the country. So this was too little, too slow for Washington. But however circumscribed, the first phase of Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon is another sign of change across the Middle East. The precise extent and implications of the pull-out (or to be more accurate pull-back) are still unclear, and the same goes for the host of other developments, from Palestine to Iraq, from Egypt to Saudi Arabia. Some may be sincere and lasting, others contrived and short-lived, but all suggest the political straitjacket that has long imprisoned the Arab world is loosening, if not yet coming apart at the seams. It is barely six weeks since the US President delivered his second inaugural address, a paean to liberty and democracy that espoused the goal of "ending tyranny in our world". Reactions around the world ranged from alarm to amused scorn, from fears of a new round of "regime changes" imposed by an all-powerful American military, to suspicions in the salons of Europe that this time Mr Bush, never celebrated for his grasp of world affairs, had finally lost it. No one imagined that events would so soon cause the President's opponents around the world to question whether he had got it right. That debate is now happening, in America and beyond, as the first waves of reform lap at the Arab world. Post-Saddam Iraq has held its first proper election. In their own elections, Palestinians have overwhelmingly chosen a moderate leader. Hosni Mubarak, who for 24 years has permitted no challenge to his rule in Egypt, has announced a multi-candidate presidential election this year. Even Saudi Arabia is not immune, having just held its first municipal elections. Next time around, Saudi spokesmen promise, women too will be permitted to vote. Most remarkably of all, perhaps, popular demonstrations in Beirut last week brought the downfall of one pro-Syrian government and - with the help of fierce pressure from Washington and the EU - the agreement by Syria to start withdrawing its troops in Lebanon. How much Mr Bush is responsible for these development is debatable. The peaceful uprising in Lebanon was provoked by outrage at the assassination of the former prime minister Rafik Hariri, in which a Syrian hand is suspected, although not proven. Then the man who insisted on elections in Iraq when the US wanted to postpone or dilute them was Ayatollah Ali al- Sistani, leader of Iraq's majority Shia community. And the death from old age of Yasser Arafat, not machinations in Washington, led to the election that might break the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock. Indubitably, however, even his most grudging domestic opponents and his harshest critics in the region admit that Mr Bush is also in part responsible. The 2003 invasion of Iraq may have been justified by a giant fraud, but that, and above all the January election to which it led, transfixing the Arab world, has proved a catalyst. The mood at the White House, on Capitol Hill and in the punditocracy has been transformed. The weapons of mass destruction fiasco is forgotten, the deaths of US troops have slipped from the front pages. Even Senator Edward Kennedy, bitter Democratic critic of the invasion, admits that Mr Bush deserves credit "for what seemed to be a tentative awakening of democracy in the region". The neoconservatives are predictably triumphalist. "What changed the climate in the Middle East was not just the US invasion and show of arms," exults the commentator Charles Krauthammer in Time magazine. "It was US determination and staying power, and the refusal of its people last November to turn out a president who rejected an 'exit strategy'." Beyond argument, old certainties in the region are less certain; old equations of power are having to be recalculated. It is, of course, only a start, and things could go dreadfully wrong. Today the pro-Syrian Hizbollah party, regarded as a terrorist group, by Washington, holds a massive demonstration. Some see the spectre of Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war and this time, they predict Syria could be thrown into bloody chaos. Success in Iraq, too, is anything but assured and there is the wild card of Iran, locked in dispute with the European Union and the United States over its suspected nuclear ambitions, and with huge mischief-making potential in both Iraq and Lebanon. The moves by Saudi Arabia and Egypt may yet be tactical, a controlled release of steam before the lid is screwed down once more. There is no guarantee that the Islamic Brotherhood, the most powerful opposition party, will be allowed to take part in the Egyptian vote. Then there is the law of unintended consequences. The maddening thing about democracy, from the viewpoints of Mr Bush and Mr Mubarak alike, is that you cannot be sure of what you will get. A Shia-dominated government will emerge in Iraq, but no one knows whether it will be secular or theocratic. What will Washington do if Islamic movements threaten repressive but reliable autocrats such as Mr Mubarak? And for all Mr Bush's argument that the survival of liberty in the US depends on liberty abroad, there is no guarantee that democracy will end terrorism. Some US officials compare the situation in the Arab world with that of eastern Europe in 1989, when the people's discontent with their rulers reached boiling point, and repressive regimes simply lacked the will to repress any longer. The same happened with the Soviet Union in 1991. But that year offers two other, more depressing parallels. One was the futile insurrection by Iraqi Kurds and Shias against Saddam Hussein. Then in Algeria, the US and the West sat silent as the military regime, faced with the victory of the Islamist FIS movement in elections, simply cancelled them. The result was a brutal civil war in which more than 100,000 died. When push has come to shove in the Middle East before, the US has invariably sided with the devil it knows, true to the philosophy: "He may be a sonofabitch, but at least he's our sonofabitch." Will this President Bush be as good as his soaring words on that icy morning in January? Lebanon may provide the first test.
As the article says we don't know what is going to happen. They cite Algeria where 100,000 were killed in a ciivil war so that democracy could be thwarted at the consent of the West. We have 100,000 killed in Iraq. The most likely result is a Shiite Iraq, aligned with Iran. A democratic Middle East will probably be even more in favor of Israel following UN mandates. A democratic Middle East will want to control their own oil and not follow the diictates of the neocons. As the article says they are trying to feel tiumphant. New polls show 54% and growing of Americans don't feel the war was worthwhile. The ARmy, Martines? and Reserves all failed to meet recruiting quotas despite higher enlistment bonuses last month. The key question is whether Bush and the present gang will try to destabilize any democracies that may result from the chaos. Their actions in Venezuela, Haiti and elsewhere suggest that they will do so if they feel that corporate interests are threatened. Until they stop doing this, their democracy and freedom talk will still seem like a cover for an oil grab, that the wmd theme will no longer justify..
I suspect Bush will eventually be right in one of the 22/23 reasons that he gave for going to war with Iraq.
Bush was correct in sticking to the deadline for Iraqi elections. I thought he was wrong before, because I thought an invalid election would make a farce of the idea that we for democracy. Things went much better than I suspected, and events proved that in that case Bush was right and I was wrong. As far as Syria withdrawing, Bush's talk rings hollow. I'm glad that a democratic election in Iraq helped push things there, but Bush's tough talk against Syria has become laughable. Within the last year Bush was sending innocent folks to Syria to be tortured. How can Bush support Syria and there tactics in one moment and then be taken seriously when he talks tough against them the next. It is sad, really. As far as Iraq goes, Bush may have had the main reason of bringing democracy to the region all along. If he did that makes him right about that, but it also makes him a huge liar, and anyone who lies to lead a nation into war, is wrong. If we believe that Bush was honest or at least had honest intentions leading up to the war, then he was wrong.
Chavez, while not a great guy, was democratically elected. I don't think Bush has been a great leader, but he was democratically elected, and I wouldn't support attempts to overthrow him. Am I to understand you correctly, that you are defending an attempted take down of a democratically elected government?
Basso, thanks for posting this. Truly GREAT news. All Americans should be proud! Hopefully this will serve to open up the eyes of the blind hatred crowd who criticizes our administration no matter what they do, good or bad.
Yep, I'm defending the Venezuelan people's right to elect who they want and not have him overthrown by a US coup backed coup -- even if the oil companies get upset. The poor and lower middle classes of Venezuela, the vast majority, have the right to vote for a candidates who reflect their economic interests. In 1776 Washington, Franklin, Jefferson etc. realized this was true even though their actions adversely effected wealthy business interests, shareholder, in England Do You? Or is any wmd, etc. accusation good enough? Aristiide was elected and is by far and away the best president Haiti has had,. The oligarchy and the Bu****es their business buddies hated Aristide for the usual reason he was redistributing wealth to the poor and this threatens corproate profits. By all accounts the new guys are worse on human rights measures.
As I'm following events with Hezbollah in Lebanon today I think that crowing about this as a Bush and US triumph might derail this whole thing. While as an American I'll give the Admin some credit for this most average people in the Middle East still hate the US including those that voted in the Palestinian elections and Lebanese protestors. Hezbollah protestors are waving as many Lebanese flags as the Syrian oppostion except that they're waving them saying that they reject US interference in Lebanese and Arab affairs. The democracy movement in the Middle East is at a critical juncture and like previous democracy movements in that region this could end up bloody or fizzling out. Trumpetting this as a US triumph will only embolden anti-democratic forces or lead Middle-Eastern democracy in directions that don't help us.
well this is all i got to say....when there was the civil war in lebenon everyone left....the U.S embassy got rocked and they ran out..nobody did jack squat....the syrians came in and helped solve the problem...yes maybe without the authority of both sides at war...but they still came in when nobody wantd to.... the U.S is practically is doint the same thing in Iraq....nobody tells them where to go...i hate this Big Brother mentality that the U.S is bringing into the world today...let others solve their own problems...ifeveryone keeps to themeselves we would'nt have world wars....anyway this is my 2 cents...did'nt read the article.
Here's one to the ongoing pro-Syrian demonstration in Beirut. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7023538/ At the last check they said numbers were 500K, which I do take with a strong grain of salt since the same source said the largest anti-Syrian demonstration was 70K.
I don't think the Independent holds much sway either way in Middle Eastern or world politics. I'm referring to GW Bush and the US Admin..
You mean like what happened from 1993-2001? Come on now! You've only had to endure a little over 4 years of it.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/03/08/bush.mideast/index.html "The trumpet of freedom has been sounded, and that trumpet never calls defeat."
