Fading U.S. democracy agenda evokes Arab scorn

[UpInArms]

Source: Reuters

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Western backing for the legally disputed emergency government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has demolished any lingering Arab belief that U.S. President George W. Bush's "freedom agenda" is going anywhere.

Both critics and advocates of the sweeping goals he laid out for his second term in 2005 agree that power politics and the "war on terrorism" have trumped democratic principles.

They say this was clear from the moment the United States and the European Union boycotted the government set up by Hamas in March 2006 after the Islamists trounced Abbas's Fatah faction in free elections that Washington had insisted go ahead.

"That was the hair in the soup in terms of the democracy agenda," said Lebanese commentator Michael Young, who had supported Bush's thesis that invading Iraq in 2003 would undermine undemocratic Arab regimes elsewhere.

"The U.S. response (to Hamas's election win) was: 'we'll accept democracy but not if it means the other side can win'."

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSHO33327620070713

[rodeodance]

1. Learning to talk to various sorts of people has always been a problem

right from the start for this administration. They give orders or make declarations from the beginning.

[LynnTheDem]

2. The SOP of American hypocrisy.

And it is, has always been, the reason why so many despise us.

[denverbill]

3. We are better friends with undemocratic Libya than democratic Venezuala.

We don't support democracy.

[AndyTiedye]

4. It Isn't As Though The Bush** Regime Supports Democracy AT HOME Either