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Monday, June 07, 2004

# Posted 8:47 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

REAGAN'S LEGACY: PROMOTING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ. In the midst of debating whether or not Reagan won the Cold War, both liberals and conservatives have embraced the implicit but flawed premise that Reagan's impact on American foreign policy did not endure beyond the fall of the Soviet Union. Yet the fact of the matter is that every time President Bush describes freedom as a universal aspiration, capable of flourishing even in the political wastelands of the Middle East, it is Ronald Reagan's voice that America hears.

In his historic address to the British Parliament in 1982, Reagan foresaw the downfall of the Soviet empire. Much less noticed was Reagan’s declaration that democracy promotion must serve as the moral and strategic foundation of American foreign policy. Contemporary journalists described Reagan’s address as an anti-Communist broadside, almost wholly ignoring the President’s positive agenda of promoting human freedom. Scholars of the Reagan era have mostly done the same.

While Reagan found it hard to withdraw American support from right-wing dictators with whom the President had established close personal ties, his administration ultimately oversaw the democratization of the Philippines, South Korea and Chile. While Reagan often found it hard to acknowledge the human rights violations committed by democratic forces, his “crusade for freedom” ultimately brought both human rights and democracy to the suffering citizens of Nicaragua and El Salvador.

But most important of all, Reagan persuaded a generation of Republicans that the GOP’s response to the Democratic embrace of human rights should not be a return to the amoral realpolitik of the Kissinger era, but rather a proud commitment to sharing America’s democratic ideals with all those who still live in the midst of dictatorship. As things now stand, George Bush’s vision of a democratic Middle East seems like little more than a pipe dream. Yet as Reagan’s legacy shows, it would not be wise to “misunderestimate” the President.
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