Bush’s flawed Middle East manifesto

Last month, Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s national security advisor, compared the present post-Iraq war situation in the Middle East to post World War II Europe. “America,” wrote Rice in her August 7 editorial published in the Washington Post, “committed itself to the long-term transformation of Europe.” She goes on to say: “…our policymakers set out to work for a Europe where another war was unthinkable.” Her views – and quite naturally one would assume those of her boss – on the administration’s guidelines upon which to build peace and democracy in the Middle East, contain the thesis of the Bush administration’s manifesto regarding the future of the Middle East. It will most likely not work. Rice advocates working with those in the Middle East who “seek progress toward greater democracy, tolerance, prosperity and freedom,” and advocates copying the European experiment and applying it to the Middle East. While indeed a noble