The Lost Column

I wrote this piece for the Washington Square News, but it did not publish for lack of an appreciable NYU focus. Fair enough. So here is the secret song of the album that is my tenure at WSN:

It Takes One to Know One
Bush can’t bring democracy anywhere, if not to U.S.

In all the talk of President Bush’s management of Iraq in the presidential debates, the content has mostly been concerning procedural matters. Regardless whether Mr. Bush applied the necessary resources and strategies needed to win the peace, the fundamental reason that he will be unable to bring genuine democracy to Iraq is that he has proven himself unwilling to practice democracy here at home.

To be sure, Senator Kerry’s criticisms of President Bush’s stewardship of Iraq have been salient, as these matters do have bearing on the short-term security of Iraq and our soldiers there. Troop levels have been too low, rebuilding projects have been under funded, potential allies have been spitefully shoved aside, and the Bush administration’s reliance on starry-eyed exiles to shape their vision of postwar Iraq was clearly quixotic. In addition, the refusal of President Bush and Vice President Cheney to make honest assessments of the situation in Iraq serves as a barrier to progress. However, there is more to be done in Iraq than having the streets safe and the water running.

Someday, the Iraqis will need to self-govern. This is not to mention that a strong democracy in the region will be an asset to long-term security, as a responsive and transparent democracy in the center of a region entrenched in autocracy can serve as a valuable example, and can therefore be a first step towards a Middle East whose denizens are not so violently opposed to America.

When it comes to actually making an Iraqi democracy a reality, I will grant that President Bush is right to begin by assuming that democracy is not an anathema to the Muslim world. Indeed, we can agree that democracy holds an appeal that is neither Western nor Christian, but human. There is certainly nothing in the Islamic religion that precludes its followers from coming together and making their own decisions concerning the way they are ruled. It has been custom, not theology, which has consigned the Middle East to the rule of despots for so long.

Therefore, President Bush is correct to believe that democracy is possible in Iraq. However, the problem is that he is unquestionably the wrong leader to actually implement it. His unfitness for this task can be seen in his domestic governing practices, which reveal his anti-democratic instinct to be about as strong as any Baathist insurgent.

In the past four years, President Bush and his surrogates have built a clear record of suppressing information, decreasing transparency, and using the procedures and resources of government to perpetuate their own administration. A book could be written on the subject, but space permits me to briefly mention a few: the intentional underestimation of the Medicare reform bill’s cost and the overextension of its House vote, the illegal use of $9.5 million in treasury funds to air TV ads touting the prescription drug benefit, the employment of Department of Homeland Security officials to track down Democratic lawmakers protesting gerrymandering in Texas, the suppression of the State Department’s candid “Future of Iraq” project, and a steadfast reticence towards congressional committees, the 9/11 commission, and the press, who have been granted only fourteen press conferences with the President in four years. These instances are merely the tip of the iceberg.

This administration requires an undemocratic process in order to create policy along the lines of ideological panaceas, rather than an honest and open process derived from the appraisal of fact. Unfortunately, this sequestered and stubborn mentality has been taken by the administration to Iraq, where lack of popular accountability and public transparency in the interim government, as well as the absence of frank assessment of the challenges ahead has been the rule.

The Bush administration is setting up Iraq’s upcoming January elections, however flawed they will be, as a quick fix for democracy. However, the real hurdle for Iraqi democracy is not security, religion, or will. Rather, the problem is that it has an incapable architect in the Bush administration, which has shown itself unable to practice what it preaches. When democracy is genuinely fulfilled in Iraq, it will not be because of George W. Bush, but in spite of him.