|
'Obama will not focus on ME democracy'
The Obama administration is unlikely to continue the press for democracy and freedom in the Middle East that was a mainstay of the Bush administration's policy in the region, a former senior US administration official said on Sunday. "There is a danger that under the general guise of not wanting to be like the previous administration, there is going to be significantly less emphasis on a freedom agenda and the promotion of democracy," Elliott Abrams, who served as president George W. Bush's deputy national security adviser for global democracy strategy, said in a conversation at Jerusalem's Shalem Center. He noted that there was a religious basis behind Bush's fervent support for his "Sharansky-esque democratization policy and freedom agenda." Bush greatly admired cabinet minister Natan Sharansky's book, The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, and his advocacy of spreading democracy to promote peace in the Middle East. Abrams, who is now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, said it would be hard for the new US administration to "turn back the clock" on promoting democracy in the Arab world and beyond. The Bush administration failed in its years-long effort to use economic pressures to force Iran to change its nuclear policies, because of last year's record oil prices, Abrams said. "The policy was to do so much damage to the Iranian economy, which would force the regime to a compromise. It might well have worked if not for the oil bonanza," he said. Posted by: Fred 2009-02-09 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=262057 |