Putting Democracy First May Test Key Relationships

For more than a century, presidents have wrestled with the recurring conflict between America’s democratic ideals and its real-world interests -- interests that sometimes led the U.S. into alliances with unpalatable dictators.

In his inaugural address Thursday, President Bush boldly declared that debate over.

From now on, he said, the principal goal of the United States must be to promote democracy everywhere in the world, even where that may mean instability in the short run.

“America’s vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one,” Bush said. “It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.”

If Bush carries through on that pledge, it will be a significant shift in U.S. foreign policy, which has often oscillated between promoting democracy and defending narrower military and economic interests.

But making that change may not be easy. Will he press hard on China, a major trading partner; or Saudi Arabia, the source of 20% of the nation’s imported oil; or Pakistan, a key ally in the hunt for terrorist leader Osama bin Laden?

In his 21-minute inaugural address, Bush did not mention other nations by name -- not even Afghanistan or Iraq, his own experiments in democracy-building -- one relatively successful, the other struggling through bloodshed toward its first election.

The president gave himself some wiggle room, but not much. “The great objective of ending tyranny is the concentrated work of generations,” he said. But he added: “The difficulty of the task is no excuse for avoiding it.”

Bush aides said that since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, Bush had grown steadily more convinced that the only long-term guarantee of national security lay in nudging autocratic regimes toward democracy.

“He really believes it,” said an official who spoke on condition of anonymity. “We weren’t sure he believed it the first time he said it.... But the election in Afghanistan was an important moment for him.”

Bush has frequently cited the Afghan election of Oct. 9, in which millions of people voted for the first time despite violent intimidation by supporters of the ousted Taliban regime, as proof that democracy can flourish in any culture.

The test of Bush’s sweeping new doctrine, though, won’t come in Afghanistan, but in more powerful countries like China and Russia, where the United States wants to maintain cordial relationships with repressive governments for practical political and economic reasons.

“Now that Bush has made this his goal, he will constantly be challenged on how well he’s living up to it,” said Robert Kagan, a leading conservative foreign policy analyst. “Take China, for example. When the president talks about ‘captives in chains,’ it’s got to apply to China.... We’re going to come up short a lot.”

But Bush aides argue that the administration has challenged China and Russia publicly on their human rights records.

Vice President Dick Cheney politely admonished China’s leaders during a speech in Shanghai last year, saying: Freedom “is something that successful societies, and wise leaders, have learned to embrace rather than to fear.”

And last month, Bush publicly criticized Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, whom he once hailed as a personal friend, for Putin’s attempt to intervene in the election in neighboring Ukraine.

Even more delicate is the question of how to handle undemocratic regimes in countries such as Pakistan and Uzbekistan that the United States is relying on for military and intelligence help in its war against Islamic terrorist organizations.

The Bush administration has been protective of Pakistan, even though President Pervez Musharraf, a general who seized power in 1999, reneged last year on his promise to give up his role as chief of the armed forces.

“We embrace Pakistan as a vital ally in the war on terror and a state in transition toward a more moderate future,” Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday.

As for Uzbekistan, an authoritarian state that has granted the U.S. military basing rights, the administration has been divided. The State Department has condemned the regime as repressive and blocked some U.S. aid; the Pentagon has praised the regime and sought to unblock the money.

Rice was not asked about Uzbekistan at her confirmation hearings this week, but the Central Asian country was not on the list of six “outposts of tyranny” that she said deserved special attention: Cuba, Myanmar, North Korea, Iran, Belarus and Zimbabwe.

Democratic critics have complained that the administration’s approach has been inconsistent and poorly coordinated.

“Everybody here wants ... to advance freedom,” Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said during Rice’s hearings. “But a lot of us think advancing freedom by wishing -- that if we just make it available to you and you see it, you will rise up and embrace it -- I don’t think it works that way.... We need a game plan.”

Bush’s embrace of worldwide democracy as his central goal is the latest stage in the steady expansion of a “Bush Doctrine” that began as a post-Sept. 11 warning that regimes harboring terrorists would be vulnerable to U.S. attack.

Bush has already widened that policy: first to target autocratic regimes that sought weapons of mass destruction -- the 2002 “axis of evil” of Iraq, Iran and North Korea -- then, in 2003, to include all autocratic regimes in the Middle East, under the theory that democracy could “drain the swamp” that produced terrorism.

The new step in Thursday’s speech, Kagan noted, was that Bush no longer justified the promotion of democracy by saying it would help win the war on terrorism; instead, he said democracy was a universal goal as a matter of principle.

“The war on terror ... leads you to cozy up to China and Russia,” Kagan said. “This goes beyond that.”

Another foreign policy scholar, John Lewis Gaddis of Yale University, said Bush’s speech placed him squarely in the idealist tradition of foreign policy first charted by a Democratic president, Woodrow Wilson, at the end of World War I -- and was a clear break with the competing realist tradition, whose champions included Cold War Republicans such as Richard Nixon and the president’s father, George H.W. Bush.

But Bush can claim a recent Republican model, Gaddis and Kagan noted: Ronald Reagan, who made the promotion of democracy a key part of his crusade against Cold War communism.

As for the world’s dictators, “they shouldn’t lose sleep immediately,” Gaddis said. “But they should be worrying about what might happen -- not just in the next four years, but over the next quarter-century.”

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Uneasy partnerships

President Bush vowed in his inauguration speech to promote democracy throughout the world. Here is a look at some of AmericaÕs partnerships, the level of political freedom in each country and the nature of the countryÕs relationship with the United States.

China - Major U.S. trading partner; U.S. investment in China is valued at more than $35 billion. - Few political freedoms. The U.S. State Department cites Òwell-documented abuses of human rights in violation of internationally recognized norms.Ó

Egypt - Major U.S. military and political ally in the Arab world; the U.S. provides more than $1 billion per year in military and economic aid. - Holds elections, but maintains significant restrictions on political freedoms and freedom of expression; protection of human rights is weak.

Kuwait - U.S. ally in the Persian Gulf; major staging base for U.S. military operations in Iraq; liberated by U.S. forces in 1991 Persian Gulf War. - Has an elected National Assembly but final power remains in the monarchy; women cannot vote or hold office.

Pakistan - Major U.S. ally in the war in Afghanistan and the campaign against Islamic terrorist groups; major U.S. aid recipient. - President Pervez Musharraf took power in a 1999 coup. Elections held in 2002 were considered flawed by international standards, and the military continues to wield significant control over the civilian government.

Russia - Bush initially praised Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, but in recent months has pressed for more democracy. - International observers criticize recent elections as unfair, largely because of increasing government control of the news media.

Saudi Arabia - U.S. military, political and eco-nomic ally in the Arab world; provides about 20% of U.S. oil imports. - Ranked by Freedom House, a nonpartisan pro-democracy group, as one of the world’s least free nations. The king rules by decree, but the ruling crown prince has promised gradual reforms.

Uzbekistan - Major U.S. ally in the war in Afghanistan and the campaign against Islamic terrorists; received more than $350 million in U.S. aid in 2002-04. - The U.S. State Department reports: ÒUzbekistan is not a democracy and does not have a free press. Several prominent opponents of the government have fled, and others have been arrested.Ó

Sources: Freedom House, ESRI. Graphics reporting by Robin Cochran.