Bush has recently and rightly been recognized as an international bully, and continuing in that vein, the Bush administration is hoping to convince European nations of its plan for the future of the Middle East. In the words of the BBC, the Bush administration plans to “promote democracy across the Middle East,” and hopes that Europe will support this plan.

What is most troubling about the likely Bush plan for democratizing the Middle East is that it would be modeled on the 1975 Helsinki Accords. While the Bush administration seems ready to happily bulldoze its way even further into the Middle East, the complex web of international and regional politics cannot adhere to a one-size-fits-all model. The Helsinki Accords were used in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. It should be common sense that if the Bush administration wants to propose a map for the political future of the Islamic Middle East, it should accommodate the cultural and religious nuances of the region. Bush is no doubt frightened that, through his war, he inadvertently paved the way for a new and more Islamically oriented government to take over the reigns. If Iraq is primed for a more religiously oriented form of government, that is not something Bush can or should ignore.    

Bush made few friends with his almost unilateral plunge into Iraq, and he has made even fewer friends in light of the recent comments made by David Kay, the former chief weapons inspector, that the White House was wrong and that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction. Whether, in the months leading up to the war in Iraq, Bush was ignorant, lying or a spectacularly awful combination of both, he has found himself forced to fiercely defend his actions in Iraq. Convincing Europe to follow his lead again will be a very tough job indeed.  

Mimi Hanaoka