The Sit-in Victory

No, George Bush was not right after all

Does the history of the George W. Bush era require revision? Considering the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt, Deniz Yücel pleads for justice regarding Bush in another editorial in this newspaper. In so doing, he joins a debate that began in the United States.

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld even insists that the “Freedom Agenda” preached by his ex-boss was instrumental in paving the way for the pro-democracy movement currently underway in the Muslim world. Others ask if whether by doing so Bush admits that the United States all too often bought Middle East stability at the cost of freedom.

At best, these are only half-truths. Neoconservative ideas formulated in several different think tanks promoting the “Project For the New American Century” became the hallmark of Bush-era policies. They went far beyond the quintessentially American creed of supporting democracy globally based on the correct assumption that repression only serves to nourish terror and violence.

Their philosophy also promoted the notion that anything was justified in protecting American interests – up to and including waging preventative wars against so-called “rogue nations,” at which point neoconservative philosophy parted ways with international law.

This was accompanied by the “with-us-or-against-us” conception that had its culmination in Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech and a “Safety First” attitude that placed America’s physical security above all else, enabling the draconian Homeland Security laws, Guantanamo and the torture of suspected enemies.

Last but not least was a belief in the blessed power of unbridled capitalism and deregulation that led the world straight into the financial crisis.

Iraq, the imperial proving grounds

It would be naïve to think that the Bush administration had the spread of democracy and human rights first and foremost on its agenda when it invaded Iraq. There were plenty of odious dictators around, such as those in North Korea and Zimbabwe. And if the idea was really to eliminate the causes that led to 9/11, it should have pushed for reforms in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, because most of the suicide terrorists came from those countries, not Iraq, Iran or Palestine.

No, the impetus for invading Iraq was imperial as well as geopolitical and economic – yes, oil. Iraq stumbled into the role of becoming a testing ground for the neoconservative theory that democracy could be bombed into a country by invading and occupying it. This hubris cost the lives of more than 100,000 people, most of them Iraqis, and clearly showed the world the true value of “stability.”

The fact that the United States was supported by compliant dictators in Pakistan, Egypt and Central Asia made its rhetoric about “freedom and democracy” sound all the more hollow.

Echoes of anti-communism

Just as Ronald Reagan made communism public enemy number one during the Cold War with his “Evil Empire” talk, the neoconservatives painted Islam as the main enemy in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. And just as their anti-communism activities ended up sponsoring military torturers and death squads in Central and South America, now any and everything was allowed in opposing even moderate Muslims.

The Bush administration spent years pointing fingers at Iran, China or Sudan to back its mantra of human rights violations. Not that there was anything wrong with that. The only problem was that it was not equally critical of its own allies as it continued showering them with weapons and cash.

Donald Rumsfeld even praised Tunisia in February 2006 as a model democracy, and Dick Cheney was still referring to Hosni Mubarak as a “friend” right up to the Cairo uprisings.

The toughest thing to swallow is the sanctimonious self-righteousness of those politicians and journalists who argue that human rights have to be defended in Iran – by invading it, if necessary – but who cannot find the courage to trust the pro-democracy movement spreading across the Middle East.

They warn us about “caliphates” while tea party shill Glenn Beck scares us with talk about the Muslim Brotherhood, and columnist Charles Krauthammer pins his hopes on the Egyptian military. This sort of double moral standard has discredited Western rhetoric about freedom and human rights and damaged the Arab democracy movement more than it has helped.

World order in shambles

Despite the fact that there were no U.S. or Israeli flags burned during the Cairo demonstrations, we should have no illusions: a portion of the rage against Mubarak and his kleptocracy had its origins in the popular idea that their president had been bought and paid for by the United States. And that it was Israel, of all nations, that was the last well of sympathy for Mubarak is something like the kiss of death.

Bush’s world order now lies in shambles. His former Tunisian and Egyptian dictator allies have been deposed. A Hezbollah-backed president rules in Lebanon and the Iraqi president serves by the grace of Iran. In the Palestinian regions, the secular Fatah regime that Bush backed against Hamas is poised on the brink of bankruptcy and Israel is isolated.

The Tahrir Square demonstrators have shown that sometimes more can be accomplished with a sit-in than is possible using great armies with all their power.

“With the best of intentions, though, we embarked on an ill-conceived and catastrophically flawed occupation aimed at bringing a decent, representative government to the long-suffering Iraqis,” said the godfather of neoconservatism, Richard Perle.

But the road to hell is paved with such good intentions. It is high time, therefore, to throw neoconservative ideology onto the scrap heap of history.