A Vision and Little Else by Fareed Zakaria

September 13, 2004, U.S. Edition

A Vision and Little Else
President Bush mocked press reports, but if he really thinks that Iraq today looks like Germany in 1946, he's in for a rude surprise
By Fareed Zakaria

The Democrats could take a lesson or two from George W. Bush. The president gave a superb speech accepting the Republican nomination. He has come to deliver formal speeches with confidence and poise, quite different from his normal clumsy, gaffe-prone speaking style. But its success was not simply stylistic. Bush's speech had a powerful central theme—the connection between the United States and the progress of liberty worldwide. He celebrated that link and rejoiced in its successes.

Democrats have been too quiet on the issue, perhaps fearful of echoing the president's words. But they are making a mistake. The idea that the United States should stand for something in the world and pursue broad goals has a distinguished Democratic pedigree. Virtually every Democratic president over the last 100 years—Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, even Carter and Clinton—has made this case. It is how John Kennedy began his Inaugural Address that pledged to "pay any price" to "assure the survival and success of liberty." And it happens to be the most powerful, accurate way to think about the war on terror. Middle Eastern terrorism is directly related to the fact that its people live under dysfunctional dictatorships.

The problem with the president's speech was not the lofty goals he outlined, but the fact that his policies are not actually moving us any closer to achieving them. It's true that a democratic Afghanistan and Iraq would be powerful, progressive forces in the Muslim world. But our postwar policies in both places have done little to make that likely. We do not help democracy take root in Afghanistan by ceding large parts of the country to warlords and drug dealers. We have not helped democracy in Iraq by destroying the old order with no idea of what to do next.

On Iraq, the president seemed strangely disconnected. It was as if it were May 2003 and the statue of Saddam Hussein had just fallen. There was no recognition that events in Iraq are not going well, that for a year our troops have found themselves facing a widening insurgency and, more importantly, deepening hostility from the general public. Islamic fundamentalists with armed militias‹our deepest enemies in the war on terror‹now run several cities in Iraq. Moqtada al-Sadr has just emerged from a clash against the United States with his militia unharmed and his reputation enhanced. Support for the United States, which was around 70 percent at the start of the occupation, is now under 5 percent.

President Bush mocked press reports detailing the problems in Iraq, comparing them to gloomy accounts of Germany in 1946. If the president really thinks that Iraq today looks like Germany in 1946‹an advanced industrial country with a long liberal tradition, centuries of experience with capitalism, the rule of law and a defeated population that fully cooperated with American occupation‹then he's in for a rude surprise.

Bush's attitude is, in fact, partly responsible for the problems in Iraq. Perseverance is a good quality, but one can sometimes persevere in error. Months into the occupation, the administration stubbornly insisted that there was no insurgency (just a few "dead-enders"), that no more troops were necessary, that the Governing Council had widespread support, that disbanding the Army was the right thing to do, and so on. It could not accept the inconvenient facts that were staring it in the face. Commenting on this aspect of Bush's speech, the conservative writer Andrew Sullivan noted, "empirical evidence doesn't matter for him ... like all religious visionaries, he simply asserts that his own faith will conquer reality. It won't."

Perhaps Iraq would have been a disaster no matter what. But there's a thinly veiled racism behind such views, implying Iraqis are savages. President Bush is right to note that after World War II, because "generations of Americans held firm in the cause of liberty, we live in a better and safer world." But in those years the United States adopted a series of wise, generous policies and a conciliatory style that made it much loved in the countries we were trying to help. Spreading democracy requires allies, particularly among the targets of one's affection.

The picture could not be more different today. Bush does not seem aware that the intense hostility toward him in every country in the world (save Israel) has made it very difficult for the United States to be the agent of freedom. In every Arab country that I have been to in the last two years, the liberals, reformers and businessmen say, "Please don't support us. American support today is the kiss of death."

The Republican convention had two alternating approaches toward foreigners. On the one hand, it repeatedly ridiculed them. The cheapest applause lines in New York last week were ones that ended in "the French," "Paris," or, worst of all, "the United Nations," which was probably meant to conjure up images of envious Third Worlders plotting against America. On the other hand, Republicans constantly declared they were going to deliver the blessings of liberty to the far corners of the world. This is the party's dilemma‹it wishes to spread liberty to people whom it doesn't really like.