COLUMN LEFT / GEORGE MILLER : Lip Service Is All We Give to Democracy : Bush’s timid initial response to the Soviet coup is merely typical of U.S. foreign policy, which exalts stability above all.

George Bush’s earliest statements on the anti-Gorbachev coup suggested that we could deal with the new autocrats in Moscow. Not until events moved against the plotters and White House political strategists undoubtedly hunkered down with the Chief did the President take a firm stand against the junta.

Bush again surprised many observers by his caution after the coup’s failure in responding to the Baltic states’ declarations of independence. His reluctance to follow the conservative rhetoric of “freedom for the Baltics” raised concerns that he was more worried about offending Mikhail Gorbachev than supporting the struggling democrats of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

Bush’s reluctance is in keeping with a long tradition of U.S. diplomacy that he, as an ambassador, CIA director and vice president, played a major role in shaping. That tradition too frequently has honored democracy more as a treasured but messy concept than as a practical form of government, and has exalted stability above all.

The United States has long befriended autocrats like the Shah of Iran, the Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos and Nicaragua’s Anastasio Somoza, despite their disdain for the political and civil rights of their own citizens. For decades, we turned a deaf ear to the oppression of blacks in South Africa, Koreans in South Korea and Sikhs in India. We denounced the tyranny of Mao Tse-tung but actively supported Fulgencio Batista in Cuba and wondered why Fidel Castro won the loyalty of his countrymen.

Indeed, when foreign peoples have exercised their democratic rights inappropriately (in Washington’s view), as in Chile, our government did not hesitate to help topple the elected president, Salvador Allende, and proceed on good terms with Gen. Augusto Pinochet and his band of murderers.

This record is not merely a historic one. Recent administrations in which George Bush has served have demonstrated a willingness to ignore democratic initiatives.

Until Sept. 2, U.S. presidents offered little assistance or encouragement to the occupied Balkan states of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, except when currying favor with exile populations in key electoral areas in this country. Even as the popular movement in Lithuania mushroomed over the past two years, the greatest source of U.S. political support came not from the White House but from congressional leaders like Rep. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), who is of Lithuanian descent.

Nor is the Administration’s ambivalence about democracy limited to foreign affairs. The Iran-Contra scandal, at its heart, illustrated a willingness by the Reagan-Bush team to dispense with a law (the Boland amendment) that it found inconvenient.

Less than a year ago, the President was openly disdainful of permitting the elected representatives of the people in the Congress to debate whether or not to take this nation into war with Iraq. Indeed, the President declared his intention to act regardless of how Congress voted. One could only be shocked that a President willing to wage war for democracy abroad would show so little respect for it here at home.

Since achieving its objectives in the Gulf conflict, the Administration has abided the return of unrestricted autocracy in Kuwait and only reluctantly agreed to aid the hunted and starving Kurdish refugees who believed that the Bush Doctrine of support for democratic movements was real. Perhaps the foreign-policy elite was too engrossed in its efforts to secure unrestricted trade benefits for the butchers of Tian An Men Square to recognize the Kurds’ democratic uprising.

These observations are not meant to suggest that our foreign policy has been without merit or accomplishment. But when we wrap ourselves so uncritically and self-righteously in the banner of goodness, we deceive ourselves and we distort the history of others. That kind of self-deception leads to a policy of expedience, not principle.

George Bush and the Realpolitik approach to foreign policy that he exemplifies have too often allowed a desire for stability to overshadow our stated devotion to democracy and human rights. With a “new order” emerging, we have an opportunity to promote and respect the democratic ideal in our own foreign policy instead of merely demanding it of others.