George W. Bush, the Middle East's Emancipator

You only thought he was a screw-up.

The Globe and Mail’s Neil Reynolds and the National Post’s Jonathan Kay both suggest that George W. Bush should get some credit for the populist uprisings currently rippling through the Arab world, an argument that would have been unthinkable to many when he left office in 2009 but is now being debated in the pages of the Economist. By defending Israel, the Middle East’s only democracy, toppling Saddam Hussein, and promoting Palestinian democracy, Reynolds says, “Bush made democracy an option in the Middle East.” Kay, who made similar statements in an interview with The Mark, goes so far as to say the region “fairly may be described as George W. Bush’s Middle East.”

While we’re always grateful for an alternative reading of history, to us in The Mark Newsroom the traction this argument is getting is surprising considering the amount of evidence there is stacked against it. Yes, Iraq had elections, but the leading candidates were heavily backed by the U.S., in an effort to avoid undesirable (to Washington) rulers that a freer contest might have elected. Last year Iraq broke the record for going the longest time without a government; it took nine months for politicians to agree on who had won the March 7 parliamentary elections. And this limited democratic success must be weighed against the destruction of untold thousands of Iraqi lives.

Reynolds's assertion that Bush “promoted Palestinian democracy” is also dubious, if not ludicrous. True, his administration pushed for elections in the Palestinian territories in 2006, but when the votes were counted and the reviled Hamas militant group had won, Bush led the charge in declaring he would cut off aid to any Hamas-led government, sparking a brief civil war that ultimately deprived Palestinians of a unified, elected government.

Bush’s unwavering support of Israel, the cornerstone of his Mideast policy, did nothing to further the peace process, and the recently leaked Palestine Papers suggest that Israel has remained uncompromising during negotiations for the past decade, emboldened by Bush’s unconditional support.

Whatever good Bush did in the Middle East, these things are also a part of his legacy, and probably reason to believe we won't be seeing Dubya's face on the Egyptian pound note anytime soon.