Iraq and Afghanistan

In many ways, President Bush represents a dream of democracy advocates come true. He is willing to crisscross the world bringing the message that the job of this century is to democratize the world and the United States has taken it upon itself to be the leader in this enterprise. Unfortunately, his inconsistencies and reliance on others in the administration with other agendas makes the message less credible than it should be.

He lectures Putin on the need for more democracy and the correctness of the American policy directed toward supporting emerging democracies on the periphery of Russia. He seems to say that successful states in the modern world must be democracies, states that have "freedom of worship, freedom of the press, economic liberty, the rule of law and the limitation of power through checks and balances". However, at the same time, he continues to support the authoritarian regimes in Pakistan and Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia for economic reasons or because of the help they afford us in the war on terrorism. Most glaringly, he does not lecture China or Singapore on the necessity for democracy.

The latter failure is traceable to the desire of many in the Bush Administration to continue the cold war against Russia. From their perspective, old friends in that war, such as China and Pakistan, are not to be lectured to or interfered with, while antagonists in that war, such as Russia, are to be surrounded and pressed on all sides until they follow our direction. Even from a democracy perspective this is a dangerous strategy, one that risks a backlash. Right now, Putin seems willing to go along grudgingly. The latest exercise in Moscow seems to have gone well on the atmospherics level. But if Putin does not, there are many others in Russia who will raise the nationalist banner to everyone's detriment. We see from recent events in Latin America how alliances and good feelings can wax and wane.