President Bush bringing Europe back into the fold

For the Bush-haters amongst us, our current president is evil incarnate and/or an amiable dunce who can't do anything right. That's why they're having so much difficulty dealing with the recent Iraqi national election and the fence-mending trip that Bush made to Europe last week.

By any objective standard, the Iraqi election turned out well for us and the president took some encouraging steps toward patching up frayed relations with our European allies. In my opinion, the most positive result of the Iraqi election is the selection of a new interim prime minister who isn't beholden to the United States.

Ibrahim al-Jaafari, an independent politician who headed the largest Shiite ticket in the election, is expected to become Iraq's next interim prime minister. Al-Jaafari spent many years fighting against Sadam Hussein's brutal regime and is backed by the country's most influential Shiite clergyman, Ayatollah Sistani, which should help him to rally his countrymen behind a new interim government.

The only other alternative, discredited opposition figure Ahmad Chalabi, who stole millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars and gave us bad intelligence, would have been far worse.

The Iraqi election was only the latest in a series of elections in a very volatile region. First, eight million Afghan citizens went to the polls last October to elect President Hamid Karzai, a U.S. ally. Next came the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine, where 75 percent of registered voters overturned an election that had been stolen by a corrupt government acting in collusion with Russian authorities.

And then the Palestinian people elected a new prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, who immediately entered into serious peace negotiations with his Israeli counterpart, Ariel Sharon. And finally, about 60 percent of eligible Iraqis defied terrorist threats and risked their lives in order to choose their own leaders.

These successful elections don't necessarily mean that a wave of democracy is sweeping the Middle East and the Muslim world, but they do represent positive steps toward peace. You can bet that dictators in places like Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria are looking over their shoulders these days.

An anti-Bush, anti-war newspaper, London's "Independent," was forced to concede that the elections "marked the start of great change across the whole region." But in the U.S., some Democratic leaders like senators Robert Byrd and Teddy Kennedy continued to excoriate President Bush as an evil warmonger.

The conservative Weekly Standard had a valid question for the senators: "Is it so hard for the Democrats, with the next presidential election still almost four years off, to overcome their Bush-hatred for just a moment in order to join in supporting the cause of freedom and democracy?" Which is exactly what European leaders did last week when all 26 NATO members pledged money, equipment or personnel to train Iraqi security forces. Although many of the pledges were modest - France will send one, count 'em one, military trainer to Iraq - it was a rare show of European unity in support of U.S. foreign policy.

I think Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice deserves much of the credit for improving U.S-European relations. She paved the way for President Bush's European "charm offensive" by advocating diplomacy instead of military force. In Iraq, Dr. Rice has already moved to take some of the play away from Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld and the Pentagon by assuring that the State Department is in charge of democracy-building, public diplomacy and related functions.

As I've written many times, Rumsfeld and a clumsy and insensitive Pentagon were in charge of those civilian responsibilities for far too long with disastrous results.

As my readers know, I opposed the Iraq invasion well before American troops moved into that country by questioning what "victory" would look like, and what we would do after we "won" the war. Well, by now, we have partial answers to those questions and it's clear that the cost of the Iraq War is high measured by some 1,500 American deaths and billions of taxpayer dollars.

Nevertheless, we're now moving in the right direction, and we should support our troops by backing the Bush administration's long-overdue plan to turn Iraq over to the Iraqis at the earliest possible moment. That's why NATO's commitment to Iraqi security is so important.

President Bush's inaugural pledge to bring freedom and democracy to every corner of the globe reminds me of President Kennedy's vow to "go anywhere and pay any price" in support of freedom and democracy. Although both presidents may have overreached with their soaring rhetoric, their intentions were sincere and noble.

Because, as Natan Sharansky wrote in his best-selling book "The Case for Democracy," we should never underestimate "the power of an individual's inner freedom, the power of a free society and the power of the solidarity of the Free World."

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND "Laundry and Bourbon" and "Lone Star," two interrelated one-act comedies currently playing at the Brewery Arts Center. This production features six talented actors in an evening of adults-only, Texas-style fun. Only three performances left, at 2 p.m. today and at 8 p.m. next Friday and Saturday. Don't miss it!

n Guy W. Farmer, a semi-retired journalist and former U.S. diplomat, resides in Carson City.