David Ignatius: Rice's Useful Rhetoric

David Ignatius, in the Washington Post (6-22-05):

Speeches don't change the world, but they sometimes put down markers for policymakers and help ordinary folks understand what's going on. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's speech in Cairo this week about Middle East democracy struck me as one of those important yardsticks.

The initial take on Rice's speech focused on her evaluation of the democratic progress of other nations -- of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, specifically. She pressed those countries to reform their political systems, while noting that local reformers must lead and define the agenda and set the pace of change. Amen.

But an overlooked aspect of Rice's speech was that it established guideposts by which to measure the policy of the United States. She enunciated a pro-democracy position so forcefully that if the Bush administration deviates from it, or undermines its credibility through belligerent, anti-democratic actions, it will be open to the charge of hypocrisy...

...I also liked Rice's caution in discussing the role of underground groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood. Until those groups openly embrace the rule of law and forswear violence, she implied, they cannot play a positive role in democratic change.

The challenge now is to turn Rice's fine words into reality. The administration will need good answers when Arabs ask: What about Guantanamo Bay? What about Abu Ghraib? What about the Palestinians? Where are you going in Iraq? But if the administration can be consistent in applying its ideals, and follow the markers Rice laid down, perhaps America can begin to find its way out of the dangerous thicket into which it has wandered since Sept. 11, 2001.

I argued last week that militias have become a fact of life in Iraq, and that they are helping maintain stability in the Kurdish north and Shiite south of the country. Given that, I said, these groups may buy time for the only viable path to a stable, democratic Iraq, which is the slow process of building a national army. I noted that, given the spread of militias, an equivalent local force in Sunni areas is inevitable and appropriate.

Those comments prompted an e-mail exchange with a U.S. military commander. He argued that the range of local security solutions varies widely across Iraq. Shiite militias may be keeping the peace in Basra and Nasiriyah, but in Karbala, Najaf, Babil and Kut, it's the local police force, led by powerful local chiefs, that is dominant. So let me amend my earlier comment: U.S. policy shouldn't embrace militias, per se, but it should recognize the patchwork of temporary local security solutions and use it to stabilize Iraq until a national army is ready.