Bush's Whitehall speech

More stirring words. He is certainly making the interventionist case.

"The peace and security of free nations now rests on three pillars":

1. Multilateral organizations - the UN and NATO
2. The willingness to act against aggression & evil by force
3. The global expansion of democracy.

Bush:

Perhaps the most helpful change we can make is to change in our own thinking. In the West, there's been a certain skepticism about the capacity or even the desire of Middle Eastern peoples for self-government. We're told that Islam is somehow inconsistent with a democratic culture. Yet more than half of the world's Muslims are today contributing citizens in democratic societies. It is suggested that the poor, in their daily struggles, care little for self-government. Yet the poor, especially, need the power of democracy to defend themselves against corrupt elites.

Many people in Ireland express skepticism when they hear these words because they believe that the US was all too willing to work with tyrants in the past.

Of course, all nations rationalize some actions as realpolitik (how else to explain Ireland's unwillingness to even invite Taiwan's President on a visit?). During the Cold War much rationalizing was done with regards to working with dictators. Whether all of it or any of it was the right thing to do is an open question that history can answer.

However, the Cold War is over and we are in a new situation. I really don't understand why so many people here continually hark back to what was done in the 50's through the 80's. It's irrelevant now. What was done then - whether rightly or wrongly - in no way changes what must be done now.

Bush again:

We must shake off decades of failed policy in the Middle East. Your nation and mine, in the past, have been willing to make a bargain, to tolerate oppression for the sake of stability. Longstanding ties often led us to overlook the faults of local elites. Yet this bargain did not bring stability or make us safe. It merely bought time, while problems festered and ideologies of violence took hold.

Clearly, the President is saying that the policies of the past that have created the current situation will not work in the future.

On a slightly related note, this passage from the President's speech could have been aimed at those who participated in the Marian Finucane Show's discussion this morning {see below}. "It's been said that those who live near a police station find it hard to believe in the triumph of violence, in the same way free peoples might be tempted to take for granted the orderly societies we have come to know".