Jordan Bush Fails the Test

The visit of King Abdullah of Jordan on Monday posed a test to Bush fairly clearly:  would he push friendly Arab leaders towards more democratic practices, or would he give them a pass?  With yesterday's press conference, we now have our answer, I think.   Bush failed.  For that matter, the press corps failed.  And America's credibility in promoting democracy in the Middle East took a hit. 

Here are the relevant passages from the press conference:

Bush:  His Majesty leads a great country in the midst of a part of the world that is changing, changing for the better. And I want to thank His Majesty for his leadership, his understanding about the need for reform, his strong alliance, his clear vision that the world needs to jointly fight terror.

QUESTION: ... (OFF-MIKE) which will also be articulated in the coming (OFF-MIKE). What will be the role of the United States in the coming (OFF-MIKE)? And when it comes to reform, how would the United States help the Arab world and Jordan, in particular, in the peace process?   [sic.  Personally, I love how the question about reform becomes a question about the peace process.  Perfect.]

BUSH: Well, I appreciate that question.   First, let's start with Jordan.   One of the things we've done is enter into trade negotiations with Jordan so that commerce between our countries can flow better.  It's much easier to reform when there's prosperity, when people are able to see His Majesty's vision about a prosperous future.   And the other way to encourage reform is to herald examples of reformers, people who are willing to put mechanisms in place that respond to the voice of the people. And His Majesty has done that.   We look forward to hearing the results of the conference in Algeria. The foreign minister briefed us on His Majesty's plans and the Jordanian government's plans to have accountability measures in place so as to help measure as to whether or not reforms are going forward. 

End of the discussion of reform in Jordan.   Not a word about the temporary laws, the struggle over the professional associations, the crackdown on political opposition, or anything else.  Not a question, nor a cautious word of concern for the political parties, professional associations, and civil society activists protesting in the streets and fighting in parliament.  You'd never know that Jordanian civil society feels under siege and that the battle is heating up.  You wouldn't know that Jordanian protestors are trying to adopt Lebanese and Egyptian style tactics - waving the national flag, peaceful protests, using the language of democracy and freedom.   Instead, just a full endorsement of King Abdullah's decidely illiberal and anti-democratic program of promoting economic reform and deferring democracy.   

Sure, the professional associations can adopt unpleasant political positions, and would neither welcome nor ask for American help.  But that isn't the point.  The point is that we need to be creating the conditions for fair, democratic, peaceful political competition in Arab countries.  We need to do this with our friends, not just our enemies;  indeed we'll get far more credit for doing so, since it would prove our sincerity far more than does opportunistic criticisms of countries we oppose for other reasons. 

The press corps failed yesterday.  They failed to ask Bush the right questions, and they failed to take Bush seriously at his word.  Would he push for democracy in allied, dependent Jordan?  The answer is no, but the question wasn't asked.

And make no mistake:  Bush failed yesterday.  If you believe in the importance of promoting democracy in the region, that is.  Would he use American influence to gently nudge a friendly leader towards democracy, putting an end to the days of sacrificing democracy to strategic interests in our relations with Arab leaders?   No.  He would not.

UPDATE:  via praktike, Peter Jennings did not fail the test.  He asked Abdullah blunt questions about democracy, about torture in Jordanian prisons, and a whole lot more. Nice to see. 

Comments

[praktike]

FYI:

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/print?id=583538

[upyernoz]

but he's a yale man. he'll get a gentleman's "c"

[the aardvark]

thanks! Peter Jennings did not fail the test.

[Penta]

As I said before: We're talking about two mutually exclusive objectives.

If we want Arab democracy, Middle East peace goes byebye, because those self-same democratic elements will rip the peace treaties in Egypt and Jordan to shreds.

If we want Middle East peace, we wind up having to squish or at least defer Arab democracy.

At the moment, the two do not mix.

I could go with either, personally. Which do people want, democracy or peace?

Saying 'Both' is not an option, because you cannot have both, not in the foreseeable future.

[Nudnik]

Penta,

Your argument is completely backwards. Peace can not precede democracy. If there continue to be Arab tyrranies, they will continue to direct the ire of their own people outwards towards some enemy - Israel. If you create democracy, people will care a lot more about what is going on in their country then they will about demonizing Israel. If democracy is achieved in the Middle East, peace will follow. Democracies do not go to war against each other.

[erg]

Peace can not precede democracy

I guess the Egypt-Israel Peace treaty, which has lasted for 25 years, must be a fiction then.

if there continue to be Arab tyrranies, they will continue to direct the ire of their own people outwards towards some enemy - Israel.

And why won't democracies do that ? Democracies are hardly immune to demagoguery. Having been in India during run-ups to war, I can well attest to that.

Democracies do not go to war against each other.

This is nonsense. When there are old hates or areas of disputes, democracies are as likely to go to war as anyone else.

India and Pakistan have fought several times including a near nuclear war in 1999(even when Pakistan was a democracy). Russia and Chechnya (when independent) fought.

Heck, the US fought Britain twice. Britain fought France several times in Africa.

[Tom Scudder]

And the United States of America fought the Confederated States of America.

[liminal]

You're argument is compelling Abu A, but I'm not sure the same rules apply to the Arab world as anywhere else. But I get your point clearly. Trying to do both will be difficult. I believe we cannot turn back now. Expectations are either really high or really low at the moment in the Arab world. Slacking on one or the other could be perceived as rampant incompetence by Arabic peoples toward the west. Not that we don't already feel like incompetence is rampant already...

Ignoring the Palestinian cause one moment longer or appearing to be half-assing it will only lead to very negative things in the future. And nobody but the extremists on both sides of the aisle are wanting this more.

I really like your blog! I'm surprised I haven't linked you up yet!

Kewl,
Limmmmmmminal

[upyernoz]

i'm waiting for nudnik to pull out tom friedman's mcdonald's theory. we should build golden arches around the world to end war forever!

[David All]

Democracy in Arab Countries and peace with Israel are two separate matters. They are not dependent on each other.

The idea that Democracies do not war upon each other is nonsense. Erq is right, authoritarian govts. have no monopoly on demagoguery. Democracies can whip up hatred just as fiercely, perhaps even more fiercely because people have the choice on whether or not to shout for war. Genuine hatred from a free choice is much deeper then hatred springing from no choice.

Erq mentions India as an example, I would mention the United States. In each country's history there were wars where it would not have mattered if the enemy had been a democracy, traditional ethnic, religious and national hatreds overrode everything else. Erq mentions India's wars with Pakistan, I would mention the USA's conquest of the Philipines in 1899-1902, the so-called Filipino Insurgency, in which the US brutally crushed an independence movement that had fought the Spainish Empire and was on the verge of establishing the Philipines as a free and independent nation.

Finally, as Tom Scudder points out, the USA fought the CSA, both with popularly elected govts, in the bloodiest war in American History, resulting in more then 600,000 American dead. As many Americans were killed in the Civil War as in all the other wars, America has fought in from the Revolution to current war against Islamic Terrorism.

As for Tom Friedman's Golden Arches theory, I believe that was a casuality of the US-NATO war against Serbia over Kosovo since the Serbian Capital of Belgrade had a McDonald's! (At least it did at the beginning, I think it was destroyed by a Serbian Crowd in the course of the conflict.)

Finally, I am glad that Peter Jennings at least had the guts to ask Our Favorite Arab King, (tittle given to whoever is King of Jordan) some tough questions about torture. This is one of the few, maybe the first time, I have ever thought well of Jennings.