However, there's one line in there that ought to give Arab democrats food for thought. "Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make [the United States] safe." Now, "excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom" is pretty euphemistic language for practices which include assisting the Iraqi Baath to come to power, supplying weapons to Saddam Hussein, betraying the Shiite insurgents of 1991, allowing the Saudi royal family to pocket its country's wealth via arms kickbacks and dishing out the massive cash subsidies without which autocratic regimes here could not survive. Again, this is a pretty mild way to describe a truly shameful record.
Policy-wise, however, it carries a punch. Bush is giving presidential endorsement to a line emerging from Washington for some time: U.S. policymakers are now reviewing their entire approach to the Middle East on the assumption that autocracy is no longer in their interest. The Bushies might not care a whit for democratic principles - they sold a war by deceit, they impose sweeping economic changes on Iraq without even a vestige of consultation and possibly in violation of international law - but they seem to have concluded that undemocratic regimes are no friends of U.S. policy.
Maybe this is simply gloss. However, how can a U.S. policy planner view what were once known as "friendly" regimes in the Arab world these days? Sure, they can be bribed not to go to war with Israel. But, from the U.S. perspective, that's about all they're good for. They have become factories for radicalized youth, be they the 11 September hijackers or the new generation of militants learning their trade in Baghdad and Falujah. They stifle the existence of independent media, while sanctimoniously invoking the freedom of the press when anyone points out the how their state-appointed editors pulp out the worst kind of inflammatory xenophobia. Suggest even the mildest of power devolutions, and they scream bloody murder and declare themselves the last bastion against the barbarians. Sure, these regimes might enact a minor reform or two, or promote a rising star in the establishment who speaks the language of democracy. But in terms of enacting lasting changes that will keep the most talented of its young people pursuing economic growth at home rather than millenarian dreams of destruction abroad, these regimes are pretty poor partners for U.S. policymakers.
I do not suggest that Arab democrats and Bush administration neo-cons are natural allies. Much of the Arab opposition rejects working with Washington on principle. It might also be poor strategy to cozy too close to the Americans - the opposition's best tool to get the public in the streets is the widespread disgust at their leaders' inability to do anything about Palestine or Iraq. Washington, for its part, has shown little inclination to reach out to Arab democrats. Ultimately, it remains to indigenous Arab pro-democracy movements to force genuine change. However, this does not mean that the opposition here should not try to recognize - and take advantage of - what Marxists call "contradictions" in the existing power structure. Washington may no longer deploy its weight behind the status quo. Bush's latest declaration on the Middle East may indeed be hypocritical cant, but it's hypocritical cant that should carry a qualified message of hope for supporters of democracy in the Arab world.
