I do not know how much time taking care of business in the Oval Office leaves its master for reading books. I wish, however, that instead, or at least in addition to, The Case for Democracy by Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, George W. Bush would also read some of the classic Russian sayings by Kozma Prutkov, a source of tongue-in-cheek wisdom to every Russian. One of them nelzya obyat neobyatnoye, "one cannot embrace what one cannot embrace" would serve Bush well. Spreading democracy around the world certainly belongs to the same class of utopian ideas as the spread of communism, and the result most likely will be the same. Tragically, history proves over and over again that when someone wants to impose his beliefs on the whole world, however noble those beliefs might be, the result is horror, blood and enormous human suffering.
Not many people in the West would object to the spreading of freedom, democracy and respect for human rights throughout the world. However, their numbers would go down drastically if the same people were asked if they were ready to pay for this process with their lives of their loved ones, or with higher gas prices, to stay this side of the extreme. Looking at the current U.S. and European polls the answer is obvious.
When George W. Bush leaves the White House he definitely wants to leave a legacy in the same league as Ronald Reagan's. As someone who voted for Bush twice in 2000 and 2004 and who now belongs to the tiny minority of Bush supporters I think I have the moral right to say that George Bush is not Ronald Reagan.
Reagan was a pragmatic man who believed that the greatest threat to the United States and the West was the communist "evil empire," and he was doing everything possible to defeat it and throw it to the "ashbin of history." Using freedom and democracy slogans to shake the communist system from within was an absolutely correct and legitimate policy. The moral support of Soviet dissidents like Andrei Sakharov, Vladimir Bukovsky, Natan Sharansky, and others was an effective weapon in the Cold War. At the same time, in his crusade against communism, Reagan used allies with very questionable democracy records, and this was also the right policy no matter what pure-hearted, naive moralists might say.
Reagan also liked Russian proverbs very much, and he obviously knew the one that says: "What's good for a Russian is death to a German." This proverb is well understood by the current Republican presidential candidates, and they showed this understanding at a recent debate by rephrasing it while openly disagreeing with Bush's vision. "I don't think we can force people to accept our way of life, our way of government," said one of the leading candidates as others nodded approvingly.
No matter what people say about Cheney, one should at least give him credit for being a straight shooter. No casting hints here. Cheney plainly couldn't care less about Bush's democracy promotion fantasy if it didn't help U.S. economy and foreign policy objectives. Cheney does not like to see the Russians use their oil and gas to compete with the United States on the global scene; therefore, his endorsement of the Kazakh president and other authoritarian leaders with lots of energy resources at least proves his honesty and pragmatism, although when he says that Kazakh democracy is superior to Russia's, it raises quite a few eyebrows.
Coming back to Bush, I keep supporting him because I believe that he understands very well the biggest threat to America and Western civilization, and he is willing to use all his remaining political leverage to face this challenge even under threat of being rated as the worst president in U.S. history. However, I do not think that Bush will succeed if he keeps combining the fight with international terrorism with his messianic and utopian democracy promotion crusade. Fighting on several fronts is simply poor strategic thinking and, in addition, it drastically reduces the number of potential allies in our main battle with international terrorism.
