Bush said the same thing in Fall of 2002: in a speech to American Enterprise Institute and in a speech to the British Parliament.
Rice's speech is not a policy novelty at all.
The signature lines in the speech were: "For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither. Now we are taking a different course." That was the clearest enunciation yet of a policy that has been evolving since Sept. 11, 2001.
This verges on silly:
Rice was not advancing an expedient wartime ethic, of the sort we have heard too often from the Bush administration, but a universal moral one. America's mission, by her account, isn't a war against terrorism but a struggle for democracy.
A struggle for democracy is a struggle against terrorism and tyranny. Democracy is the only alternative to them.
Am I dreaming or am the only person who has heard every senior member of the US administration say it? They don't stay on message nearly as consistently as they should, but they say it and act on it.
That may sound like a mere change in semantics, but it moves the United States from a situation in which every Muslim is a potential enemy to one in which every Muslim is a potential ally
Too much PCism here. The US stand for democracy makes some Muslims permanent mortal enemies.
Here's more portentious silliness:
The challenge now is to turn Rice's fine words into reality. The administration will need good answers when Arabs ask: What about Guantanamo Bay? What about Abu Ghraib? What about the Palestinians? Where are you going in Iraq? But if the administration can be consistent in applying its ideals, and follow the markers Rice laid down, perhaps America can begin to find its way out of the dangerous thicket into which it has wandered since Sept. 11, 2001.
The US didn't wander into a "dangerous thicket" then. It was ambushed on Main Street and since 9/11/01 has taken the fight to its enemies.
How can such an intelligent man get his premise so wrong?
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