With such friends in high places, the cause of democracy in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world doesn't seem to need enemies, writes Adel Safty* When President George W Bush failed to substantiate his allegations about his reasons for war in Iraq, he took the high moral ground and claimed it was all in the service of promoting peace and democracy in the Middle East. Yet, the team he has chosen to accomplish this freedom and democracy crusade sends a message, not of cooperation, but of confrontation and belligerency. In January, he nominated Alberto Gonzales for the post of US attorney-general. It was Gonzales who advised the president to ignore the Geneva Conventions. The United States signed and ratified the Geneva Conventions in 1956, and in 1996, Congress passed the War Crimes Act, making grave breaches of the conventions a federal crime. Evaluating the primary role Gonzales played in counselling the president to violate the Geneva Conventions, law professor Francis Boyle of the University of Illinois concluded that: "Alberto Gonzales originated, authorised, approved, and aided and abetted grave breaches of the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions of 1949... which are serious war crimes..." On 2 February, Bush appointed Elliot Abrams to the number two position on the National Security Council, where he "will be responsible for pushing Bush's strategy for advancing democracy" as well as overseeing Middle East policy. Abrams joined the Reagan administration as its human rights chief and was promoted in 1985 as assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs. He left the administration a convicted criminal for lying to Congress about his role in illegally raising money to support the death squads in Central America. The senior Bush pardoned Abrams, and the junior Bush gave him a job as the National Security Council's director for Near East and North African affairs, which did not require congressional approval. The late Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory wrote at the time (2001): "Members of Congress remember Abrams's snarling at committee hearings, defending death squads and dictators, denying massacres, lying about illegal US activities in support of the Nicaraguan contras." Abrams's position on the Middle East conflict is as simplistic as it is dangerous: blind support for Israel and systematic opposition to peace plans: He opposed the land-for-peace formula that has been a pillar of US foreign policy in the Middle East since the Johnson administration. He assailed the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference that followed the first Iraq War and to which Israel was dragged kicking and screaming. He also opposed the 1993 Oslo Accords. Israeli writer and peace activist Uri Avnery described Elliot Abrams as "a gentleman slightly more Zionist than Sharon himself, if such a thing were possible." On 17 February, Bush announced that he was nominating Ambassador John Negroponte to be the first director of national intelligence. Negroponte is most famous for his role in helping the CIA create and support the operations of death squads in Honduras during the Reagan administration in the 1980s. The death squads engaged in kidnapping, torturing and liquidating political opponents, not only in Honduras but also in nearby El Salvador and against the Sandinistas regime and its supporters in Nicaragua. The Bush administration is reportedly preparing a "Salvador Option" for Iraq: US-trained "death squads" to target insurgents and their civilian supporters. A Pentagon official said: "The Sunni population is paying no price for the support it is giving to the terrorists. From their point of view it is cost-free. We have to change that equation." ( The Daily Telegraph, 10 January, 2005) On 7 March, Bush nominated John R Bolton as the new American ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton, known for his contempt for the UN, once famously proclaimed: "there's no such thing as the United Nations." In an article published in The Weekly Standard in 1999, he warned Washington against legitimising the UN, otherwise America's "discretion in using force to advance its national interests is likely to be inhibited in the future." Bolton unabashedly proclaims that the world should be ruled by the United States. If he were reforming the UN, he once told an interviewer, he would take away the veto power from Russia, China, France, and England and keep only one permanent member with veto power: The United States. He vehemently opposes international law: "It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law," he said, because "those who think that international law really means anything are those who want to constrict the United States." In the Middle East, he shares the same fanatical identification with right-wing Zionism as Ellitot Abrams. His strategic vision for the Middle East is equally simplistic: project more American power and further strengthen Israel to ensure peace through supremacy and domination. In February 2003, Bolton said that after dealing with Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein, "it will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria, Iran, and North Korea afterwards." After the invasion of Iraq he accused Syria and Iran, without providing any evidence, of developing weapons of mass destruction. He threatened them with "potentially high" consequences. The prospects for peace and democracy in the region are being shaped by the Bush team: Gonzales who condones torture in breach international law, which directly led to the criminal abuses at Abu Ghraib; Negroponte who promoted democracy by supporting death squads in Central America; Abrams who opposed all peace agreements with the Palestinians; and Bolton who has only contempt for the UN and international law, and believes only in American supremacy. Pity the people of the Middle East. They may be legitimately confused when told life is a jungle, election under the gun is democracy, abuse is respect, occupation is freedom, and war is peace. * The writer is UNESCO chair of Leadership and president of the School of Government and Leadership, Bahcesehir University, Istanbul. He is author-editor of 14 books including From Camp David to the Gulf , and Leadership and Democracy , IPSL Press. New York, 2004.
