Jonathan Freedland: A better way to push democracy, but the west's love-bombing has risks too
[Jonathan Freedland writes a weekly column for the Guardian.]
They say that if failure is an orphan, then success has many fathers – and Egypt's revolution has proved the truth of that aged wisdom all over again. The latest to file a paternity claim is Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary to George W Bush. Out hawking his new memoir, Known and Unknown, Rumsfeld reckons it was Bush's "freedom agenda" that paved the way for the current revolutionary spirit sweeping the Arab world. "What President Bush has done in Iraq and Afghanistan is to give the people in those countries a chance to have freer political systems and freer economic systems. There's no question that the example is helpful in the region."
In this, Rumsfeld was a little late to the party. His neoconservative outriders had already been making the case even more forcefully. In the Washington Post Charles Krauthammer took the near-universal admiration for the crowds in Tahrir Square as belated endorsement of the Bush programme. Where once Bush, Tony Blair and the neocons stood alone, now "it seems everyone, even the left, is enthusiastic for Arab democracy", wrote Krauthammer, adding generously: "Fine. Fellow travellers are welcome."
In Britain Melanie Phillips has expressed astonishment at the sight of progressives backing the Egyptian demands for regime change: hadn't these same "bien-pensants" denounced the Bush-Blair pursuit of regime change in Iraq? There could only be one explanation for this sudden change of heart: the left opposed the removal of Saddam because he was anti-western, but supported the ejection of Hosni Mubarak because he was pro-western.
Er, no. That's not quite it...
Read entire article at Guardian (UK)
They say that if failure is an orphan, then success has many fathers – and Egypt's revolution has proved the truth of that aged wisdom all over again. The latest to file a paternity claim is Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary to George W Bush. Out hawking his new memoir, Known and Unknown, Rumsfeld reckons it was Bush's "freedom agenda" that paved the way for the current revolutionary spirit sweeping the Arab world. "What President Bush has done in Iraq and Afghanistan is to give the people in those countries a chance to have freer political systems and freer economic systems. There's no question that the example is helpful in the region."
In this, Rumsfeld was a little late to the party. His neoconservative outriders had already been making the case even more forcefully. In the Washington Post Charles Krauthammer took the near-universal admiration for the crowds in Tahrir Square as belated endorsement of the Bush programme. Where once Bush, Tony Blair and the neocons stood alone, now "it seems everyone, even the left, is enthusiastic for Arab democracy", wrote Krauthammer, adding generously: "Fine. Fellow travellers are welcome."
In Britain Melanie Phillips has expressed astonishment at the sight of progressives backing the Egyptian demands for regime change: hadn't these same "bien-pensants" denounced the Bush-Blair pursuit of regime change in Iraq? There could only be one explanation for this sudden change of heart: the left opposed the removal of Saddam because he was anti-western, but supported the ejection of Hosni Mubarak because he was pro-western.
Er, no. That's not quite it...