In Mideast, Reaction to Bush Speech Is Dismissive
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
Published: November 7, 2003
CAIRO, Nov. 7 — Commentators across the Middle East today largely dismissed President Bush's speech calling for wider democracy in the region, labeling it something for domestic consumption to justify the war in Iraq rather than signaling a real change in United States policy.
Political analysts, while welcoming the idea of ending decades of support for dictatorships, dwelt on the usual gap between reality and what the Bush administration says about the Middle East.
The most common conclusion was that until the United States does something concrete to force Israel to free millions of Palestinians kept under military occupation, all American statements about greater democracy and freedom will ring hollow.
The vision that Mr. Bush painted was an appealing one, wrote Sahar Baasiri, a columnist in the Lebanese daily Al-Nahar, "But before it is translated into tangible policies that deal with real problems, it will remain boring, empty rhetoric."
The problems Mr. Bush talked about — recognizing that the United States was wrong in backing repressive regimes because in the end that produces instability — are not new to the people of the region, she said.
"We are familiar with these diseases and we recognize his role and the role of successive U.S. administrations in spreading and sustaining them," she wrote. "What is needed, is a realization that the fundamental problem remains that of Palestine, and the scandalous U.S. bias in favor of Israel and against the Arabs, their interests, and their aspirations."
<font color=red>Mr. Bush's speech was broadcast late in the day on Thursday, just as much of the region was sitting down to break the daily fast during Ramadan. It also came on the eve of the Muslim sabbath, when few newspapers publish, so official comments were sparse. <font color=black>
Iran, however, condemned Mr. Bush's remarks as interference in its internal affairs.
"No individual, or group, has ever commissioned Mr. Bush to safeguard their rights, nor is he responsible for supporting anyone here," Hamidreza Asefi, a spokesman for the foreign ministry, said in a statement carried by the Islamic Republic News Agency. "And basically, keeping in mind the dark record of the United States in suppressing the democratic movements around the globe, he is not in a position to talk about such issues."
The irony was not lost on some commentators that Mr. Bush mentioned steps toward reform in friends like Saudi Arabia, viewed basically as a repressive monarchy, while demanding freedom in Iran, which has an elected if ineffective parliament and raucous internal political debates.
The Saudi press, however, took what faint praise there was in the speech and ran with it, basically ignoring the underlying message of pressure for greater change in the kingdom and neighboring states.
"Bush Commends Kingdom for Democratic Reforms" read the headline in the English language Arab News and echoed in the Arabic headline in its larger sister paper, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, published throughout the Arab world.
Some commentators did view the speech as marking a significant change: that Mr. Bush was signaling that the United States would no longer conduct business as usual.
"It would be a radical change in American foreign policy to extend a hand beyond the existing regimes, the traditional friends," said Omar Baghour, a Saudi economist who writes a newspaper column for Al-Madina, speaking by telephone from Jidda.
There was no mention of the speech in the official press in Syria, where most newspapers do not publish on Friday, nor in Egypt, where those that did publish treated it largely as a straight news story.
One Syrian commentator, Imad Fawzi Shueibi, a professor at Damascus University who is a political analyst, said that of course Syrians aspire to greater liberty at home but that they do not want to hear about it from the United States given its history of backing Israel and the mess it is making in Iraq.
"We can agree with the slogan that democracy is the best system and that freedom is a basic right for human beings, but we can't accept it from someone who is violating this freedom and this democracy," he said.
The sentiment was similar among Egyptian intellectuals.
"We see a case of mismanagement of occupation in Iraq and a regression in freedom in America itself embodied in the Patriot Act," said Abdelmonem Said, the director of the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, referring to more stringent domestic measures in the U.S. following the Sept. 11 attacks. "I believe Bush would help democracy a great deal if he worked more seriously toward solving the Palestinian issue and restoring stability in the region."
nytimes.com |
