Advance of Freedom

Yesterday, I finally listened to the speech President Bush gave to the National Endowment for Democracy last Thursday. If you haven’t read, seen, or heard this speech I encourage you to do so. The speech is available here.

This is another in the series of important speeches in which President has set forth an ambitious vision of the post 9-11 world. Think back for a moment to the days immediately following the 9-11 terror attacks on the U.S. Remember the country’s desire for an answer to the question of why it happened; “why do they hate us.” President Bush may not answer that question, but he has a long term vision about how to eliminate the conditions that incubate the evil doers.

In this speech, President Bush laid out his vision of a “forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East.” In the President’s vision, the “advance of freedom leads to peace.”

The advance of freedom is the calling of our time; it is the calling of our country. We believe that liberty is the design of nature; we believe that liberty is the direction of history. We believe that human fulfillment and excellence come in the responsible exercise of liberty. And we believe that freedom -- the freedom we prize -- is not for us alone, it is the right and the capacity of all mankind.

Over time, free nations grow stronger and dictatorships grow weaker.

Because we and our allies were steadfast, Germany and Japan are democratic nations that no longer threaten the world. A global nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union ended peacefully -- as did the Soviet Union.

Time after time, observers have questioned whether this country, or that people, or this group, are "ready" for democracy -- as if freedom were a prize you win for meeting our own Western standards of progress. In fact, the daily work of democracy itself is the path of progress. It teaches cooperation, the free exchange of ideas, and the peaceful resolution of differences.

Yet there's a great challenge today in the Middle East. In the words of a recent report by Arab scholars, the global wave of democracy has -- and I quote -- "barely reached the Arab states." They continue: "This freedom deficit undermines human development and is one of the most painful manifestations of lagging political development." The freedom deficit they describe has terrible consequences, of the people of the Middle East and for the world. In many Middle Eastern countries, poverty is deep and it is spreading, women lack rights and are denied schooling. Whole societies remain stagnant while the world moves ahead. These are not the failures of a culture or a religion. These are the failures of political and economic doctrines.

Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe -- because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export. And with the spread of weapons that can bring catastrophic harm to our country and to our friends, it would be reckless to accept the status quo.

These are just my favorite parts. The speech deserves to be read in its entirety. Invest the 30 minutes required to read, listen or watch the whole thing. William Safire, more eloquently than I can, explains: Reading summaries and excerpts and critiques lets editors and analysts do the thinking for you. Film snippets of applause lines won't help you grasp the import, which you should have even if you want to disagree knowledgeably.