The prophet of democracy brought in from the wilderness

The Sunday Times ^ | March 6, 2005 | Martin Ivens

[MadIvan]

Natan Sharansky tells Martin Ivens his time has come as America adopts his strategy for Middle East reform

That a prophet goes without honour in his own land is hardly surprising. But Natan Sharansky has managed to achieve a rarer feat — two homelands have rejected him.

His native Soviet Union sent him to the gulag for nine years by way of the torture cells of Moscow’s Lefortovo prison for demanding freedom. His adoptive Israel celebrated his release and arrival in the promised land with a wave of national rejoicing. Then, for demanding freedom for the Arabs, it ignored him.

But he is not without friends in high places. Sharansky’s book, The Case for Democracy, became bedside reading for President George W Bush. It inspired the clarion call for democracy in the Middle East that Bush made in his second inaugural address. “That thinking, that’s part of my presidential DNA,” said Bush.

The admiration is mutual. “I was sorry (Andrei) Sakharov was not alive to hear it”, Sharansky rasps in his accented English, while speaking of his revered mentor in the Soviet dissident movement. “But the dissidents will hear it. I heard President Reagan’s appeals when I was in prison.” The dissidents today are Arab and he singles out some of them in his book.

Soviet hostility to him was predictable, Israeli indifference scarcely less so. Most shades of Israeli opinion ironically share the analysis of Arabists in the West: you get oil and sand in the Middle East, but not freedom. The neighbourhood is stuffed full of dictators and it’s going to stay that way. Don’t expect better.

When Sharansky said that Israel must foster democratic change among Arab neighbours his critics shrugged that Islam was incompatible with democracy. What about democratic but Muslim Turkey and Indonesia, he insisted? Well, the Arabs are different from non-Arab Muslim peoples, they said. But that’s exactly what they kept repeating about the Soviet Union, he fumed.

Sharansky opposed the peace process brokered by the Americans between successive Israeli governments and the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. He saw little point in making concessions to a man he considered a despot under whom armed thugs and corruption flourished. His enemies called him a right-wing loony for making “impossible” demands of the Palestinians.

But the Oslo peace process turned into a war process when Arafat gave his blessing to a wave of suicide attacks on Israel four years ago. Sharansky didn’t seem so crazy after all. When a group of fanatics, many of them born in America’s autocratic and Islamist ally Saudi Arabia, smashed two planes into the World Trade Center, Washington began to listen too. The neocons, of course, had long recognised a kindred spirit.

Sharansky’s ideas are simple but potent. States that are ruthless towards their own people are no partners for democracies. “Apply the town square test,” he writes. “Can a person walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment or physical harm? If he can, then that person is living in a free society. If not, it’s a fear society.”

His big idea is “linkage”. He was inspired by the hawkish example of Democratic Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson — who forced a reluctant President Nixon and Henry Kissinger to negotiate the right of Jews to leave the Soviet Union — and, later, President Reagan. Both demanded domestic concessions from their communist foe as the price of any agreement.

Statesmen before them had tried to link their countries’ foreign policies to a rival regime’s international conduct — but they would link America’s policies to the Soviets’ internal conduct. The West must follow suit by extending linkage to all Arab and non-Arab dictatorships alike.

Now a democratic ferment is spreading through the Middle East, following Iraq’s election. Sharansky believes his time and Bush’s has come. “The president is also a dissident among leaders. But the period of his loneliness will be shorter than mine,” he says. “Other western leaders will see that democratic change is possible.”

But what if an Arab people democratically elect a dictator? What if that leader seeks the destruction of Israel? “Democratic elections do not equal democracy. A temporary majority is not a democracy. You need a free society which protects the individual.

“Take the case of the Nazis. A year after they were elected there were no more elections. It was a dictatorship. It was then that the world should have reacted and stood up to Hitler,” he barks.

Sharansky has been an opponent of Ariel Sharon’s plan to pull out of Gaza. He wants Palestinian democratisation first. His critics say this is a cover for keeping the occupied territories. Sharon humours him for Bush’s sake, but is gently sceptical.

Dissidents are awkward if brave folk. Sharansky, I expect, will be irritating and inspiring in equal measure for a long time to come.

[MadIvan]

Good on him. I agree - Israel shouldn't be giving up anything, particularly to irresponsible people.

Regards, Ivan

[MadIvan]

Ping!

[AFPhys]

It completely amazes me that anybody can think for even a second that Bush's "Liberty Doctrine" was a surprise. He has been expounding upon that same doctrine since 9/11, and to a lesser extent even before that time. Natan Sharansky's book was not the first time President Bush, Condoleeza Rice, or other of the Bush team talked about this.

The most detailed look at it was first given on June 1, 2002 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020601-3.html
President Bush Delivers Graduation Speech at West Point

Not long after that, in "The National Security Strategy of the United States of America", http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html , the administration laid out the whole deal, with reasoning and detail. Many only saw "preemption" in this, but they were simply being myopic, intentionally or not. The first paragraph of that is:

"The great struggles of the twentieth century between liberty and totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom—and a single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise. In the twenty-first century, only nations that share a commitment to protecting basic human rights and guaranteeing political and economic freedom will be able to unleash the potential of their people and assure their future prosperity. People everywhere want to be able to speak freely; choose who will govern them; worship as they please; educate their children—male and female; own property; and enjoy the benefits of their labor. These values of freedom are right and true for every person, in every society—and the duty of protecting these values against their enemies is the common calling of freedom-loving people across the globe and across the ages."

I highly recommend that all FReepers, all who wish to catch up on what has been going on behind the scenes and why, all who still can't understand the reason our Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta, and our Bill of Rights are so powerful, and all who simply wish to educate themselves as to the most probable direction of the Twenty-First century take a look at these documents - more than once.


Bush's Liberty Doctrine is to this century what the Monroe Doctrine was to the 19th. President Bush's administration has invited us all to understand what is happening, if we wish to understand. This team and president are far more intelligent and farseeing than most others in the whole world. Present events demonstrate the truth in these documents.

Natan Sharansky is important, but to maintain that Bush relied almost solely on his work is true folly.
/

[Zivasmate]

Bush is pretty much following the Sharansky formula. The problem is if Sharon insists on giving up Gaza, and there are plusses and minuses to doing so, what is Bush supposed to do?

But the signs of movement allover the Middle East are directly the results of Bush's adherence to Sharansky's blueprint.

[Soul Seeker]

True, but it fits the caricature they have written for Bush to make him dependant on Sharansky for his ideas.

At first they didn't even extend that courtesy. They were stating Bush citing this book was an attempt to be liked by the intellectual elites. LOL

The reason the President has embraced Sharansky is because he wrote a book he (G.W.) can recommend to others to explain what he is doing. Bush has tried to do this in speeches, but they can't hear. They don't understand. They hold prejudice against this President and only see the caricature. So he's using another likeminded individual to help articulate his message.

I have nothing against Natan and am glad he is out there, but Bush held this vision before his meeting with him after the election. "Journalist's" trying to insinuate otherwise cannot deny forever his own speeches that preceded that meeting.

[hinckley buzzard]

"Bush is pretty much following the Sharansky formula."

I think the "formula" of the Bush Doctrine--support for democracy, freedom and peaceful secure relations with neighbors--has been around a lot longer than Sharansky.

What is new is that we have a President once again who means it and believes it.

[Zivasmate]

I think you are right. But the Sharansky model in his book allowed Bush to confirm his instincts by reading them from a writer he respects.

[AFPhys]

That is exactly the point I am making.

Rest assured, if nothing happens in the next five years to reverse the Bush Liberty Doctrine and counter that, those articles I posted will be read and cited by historians in the next century.

We have the great privilege to study them now.

[radicalamericannationalist]

Two things that Sharansky didn;t address in his book that seemed to be significant holes in his argument.

1. Pakistan. As the political situation stands, free elections would likely bring Islamists to power. This would effectively make Al Qaeda a nuclear power. How, in this case, would democracy serve to enhance US security interests?

2. Russia. As Georgia and Ukraine demanded real elections and reform, Russia has been sliding into a more repressive state. Yet, unlike Georgians or Ukrainians, the Russian people do not appear to be protesting. The WSJ carried an interesting op-ed piece on the Russian people's acceptance of the sliding tyranny in its Friday issue. See FR post here. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1356039/posts

I'll give Sharansky credit for not being psychic and leaving the Ukraine comparison out of the book. However, I do believe the Georgian experience had already existed. So my question is, if all people want freedom, why aren't the Russian people on the street?

[hinckley buzzard]

He has spoken of how important Sharansky's book has been to him, and Condi acknowledged she has read it as well. I think it is a great vindication for a courageous man to be taken seriously by the President, this President especially... Interesting how history arranges such a crossing of paths at crucial times.

[TheDon]

Well said. In Natan, President Bush found a fellow believer. It is no surprise that President Bush thinks so highly of Natan's book, since it describes what President Bush believes and makes the case quite well.