Could Bush Be Right?

David Brooks had an interesting Op-Ed piece in this morning's NYT. Entitled "Why Not Here?", the piece argues -- or more precisely points out -- that Bush has succeeded in transforming the world's agenda; and further, that the transformation is positive.

The takeoff point for this is the startling acknowledgement by Walid Jumblatt that the mass protests against Syrian domination of Lebanon triggered by the assassination of Rafik Hariri were actually a result of the elections in Iraq.

"It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, eight million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world."

Brooks points to other cases along the same lines: the elections in the Ukraine, the Palestian elections and the transformation underway in the Palestinian authority, and the elections in Iraq and Afghanistan themselves. But, perhaps the most startling example probably came too late to make it into Brook's column: Hosni Mubarak's call for democratic reform in Egypt:

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Saturday ordered a revision of the country's election laws and said multiple candidates could run in the nation's presidential elections, a scenario Mubarak hasn't faced since taking power in 1981.

The surprise announcement, a response to critics' calls for political reform, comes shortly after historic elections in Iraq and the Palestinian territories, balloting that brought a taste of democracy to the region. It also comes amid a sharp dispute with the United States over Egypt's arrest of one of the strongest proponents of multi-candidate elections.

Is it possible that Bush is right? Is it possible that the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the subsequent efforts to build democracies there will, in fact, work a positive transformation in the rest of the Arab world, or indeed in the world at large?? It's hard for someone who has been as opposed to the invasion of Iraq as I have been, and who is as much a devotee of realpolitik and as much a cynic about the role of ideals in international relations as I am, to countenance such a possibility. But, even I have to admit that there does seem to be a least a possibility that Bush's actions may end up working an historic and profoundly positive change in the world.

Never one to abandon cynicism too quickly, I should note that pursuit of liberty for the world's oppressed peoples was not Bush's original goal in going into Iraq. That was simply a post-hoc rationalization for what was actually an exercise of pure power motivtaed primarily, I believe, by personal animosity. Thus, if something good does come from it, it will be much more the result of serendipity than planning or intent. But still, this flowering of hope, however brief it turns out to be, is a reminder that ideals do have power, even if the person wielding them is doing so cynically.

Taking off on an earlier Op-Ed piece by Stephen Sestanovich, Brooks suggests, first, that the ability to envision and to pursue new worlds -- to jump in where angels fear to tread, as it were -- is to some extent America's role in the world, and second, that great change comes not from "realistic" incrementalism, but from the pursuit of the maximalist outcome. As Brooks and Sestanovich acknowledge, and as Iraq itself demonstrates, this impetuousness can, perhaps inevitably does, result in enormous human suffering in the near term. But if the result is a significant liberalization of the Arab world and a change in the way America is viewed there, it is difficult to say that, from humanity's point of view, the suffering was not worth the candle.