Spreading Democracy

From The Washington Post:

By the time he arrived in Prague in June for a democracy conference, President Bush was frustrated. He had committed his presidency to working toward the goal of "ending tyranny in our world," yet the march of freedom seemed stalled. Just as aggravating was the sense that his own government was not committed to his vision.

As he sat down with opposition leaders from authoritarian societies around the world, he gave voice to his exasperation. "You're not the only dissident," Bush told Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a leader in the resistance to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. "I too am a dissident in Washington. Bureaucracy in the United States does not help change. It seems that Mubarak succeeded in brainwashing them."

If he needed more evidence, he would soon get it. In his speech that day, Bush vowed to order U.S. ambassadors in unfree nations to meet with dissidents and boasted that he had created a fund to help embattled human rights defenders. But the State Department did not send out the cable directing ambassadors to sit down with dissidents until two months later. And to this day, not a nickel has been transferred to the fund he touted.

Two and a half years after Bush pledged in his second inaugural address to spread democracy around the world, the grand project has bogged down in a bureaucratic and geopolitical morass, in the view of many activists, officials and even White House aides. Many in his administration never bought into the idea, and some undermined it, including his own vice president. The Iraq war has distracted Bush and, in some quarters, discredited his aspirations. And while he focuses his ire on bureaucracy, Bush at times has compromised the idealism of that speech in the muddy reality of guarding other U.S. interests.

The story of how a president's vision is translated into thorny policy is a classic Washington tale of politics, inertia, rivalries and funding battles -- and a case study in the frustrated ambition of a besieged presidency. Bush says his goal of "ending tyranny" will take many generations, and he aims to institutionalize it as U.S. policy no matter who follows him in the White House. And for all the difficulties of the moment, it may yet, as he hopes, see fruition down the road.

On July 30, 1619 The House of Burgesses met for the first time in the Jamestown colony in Virginia. From that time forward Americans began to learn how to implement democratic government. They had the added benefit of coming from an island nation which had been moving in the direction of greater democracy and would continue to do so.

Most of the unfree nations in the world today do not have that advantage. In the Middle East the most powerful force is the medieval death-cult of Islam. If Saudi Arabia were to hold truly free elections today Osama bin Laden would be elected president. He would then, with the full support of the people, create a theocracy and there would never be another election.

In Africa the most powerful political force is tribalism. Almost all of the misery in Africa can be laid at the feet of tribalism. Even when the violence seems to be Muslim against Christian or animist a closer examination will reveal that it is the Muslim tribe against the Christian or animist tribes. No solution to the poverty and backwardness of Africa can ever be found until the people there can rise above tribalism. Democratic elections in most African nations would only result in the majority tribe voting to exterminate the minority tribe.

Spreading democracy is a fine thing, but it will take time. Nations will have to go through a long process of preparation in the same way that India was prepared for democracy and prosperity by its time as a colony of the UK.