Has the US put democracy on hold to fight terrorism?

When the US President George W. Bush declared war on terrorism after September 11, 2001, it was obvious that other priorities - including the promotion of democracy and human rights - would lose ground.

What was less obvious was whether those goals would fall as far back as they often had during the Cold War, when the United States seemed ready to embrace any dictator who promised to hate communism. Compromises again would have to be made, but maybe the Bush administration would understand that in the long run, fighting terror and promoting democracy had to go hand in hand.

Or maybe not.

President Bush answered the question pretty definitively 10 days ago when he welcomed "my friend Vladimir Putin" to Camp David with these words: "I respect President Putin's vision for Russia: a country at peace within its borders, with its neighbours, a country in which democracy and freedom and rule of law thrive."

Outlandishly fictional

This description of President Vladimir Putin's Russia was so outlandishly fictional, so at odds with the KGB-inspired screw-tightening that has been the hallmark of Putin's regime, that the only possible conclusion was that Bush just does not care.

Aides said Bush delivered a different message in private. But his public message seemed to be: stand by my side and proclaim yourself an ally in the war on terror, and all else may be forgiven. You can shut down your media, rig elections, send troops rampaging through Chechnya, and Bush will stay mum.

As in Russia, so in much of the world. Throughout this administration, there are career bureaucrats and political appointees who are passionately committed to promoting democracy. But at the top, democracy seems to have become an afterthought, except when its championing is politically useful (Iraq, Afghanistan) or relatively cost-free (Burma, Zimbabwe). And even in Myanmar, it is not clear the administration will spend chits to influence other nations that could help.

An administration that entered office determined to stand up to China's Communist leaders now is deferential as Beijing bolsters Myanmar's dictators, represses Muslims in western China, denies democracy to Hong Kong and continues to menace Taiwan.

Some of the world's most corrupt and ruthless dictators in Caspian and Central Asian nations such as Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan consolidate their autocracies while the Bush administration awkwardly clears its throat and begs for basing rights or oil deals.

Just as during the Cold War, foreign aid requests soar for "front-line states" - in this case, democracy-challenged nations such as Jordan and Pakistan - while the administration cuts assistance to civil society, democracy-building and independent media in Russia, with plans to end all such assistance in a couple of years.

This cutoff of aid is characterised in official documents as Russia's "graduation", which might be sensible if Russia were making progress - if Putin in fact held the vision that Bush ascribes to him. What is striking about the Bush mischaracterisation, though, is that his own government knows it is not true.

"The slow pace of democratisation is a major concern," the US Agency for International Development says of Russia in its 2004 budget request to Congress. AID cites human rights abuses, intolerance of minority religions and a clampdown on free media as "evidence of a continuing struggle between proponents of broad participation in Russian society and the government's pursuit of managed-democracy". Yet direction from the top forces AID to begin shutting down its democracy programmes.

And for what? President Putin pockets his Camp David and Crawford visits and his accolades from his friend George, and then stiffs the United States on Iraq, stiffs the United States on Iran and won't even talk about Chechnya. China hosts a six-nation conference on North Korea, heralded by the administration as a sign of great co-operation, and then attacks the United States as the intransigent party.

Co-operating

Yes, both nations are co-operating in some ways in the search for terrorists. And, having alienated so many democracies, the administration must be comforted that these two formerly hostile powers at least maintain a civil tone.

But the struggle against terrorism is going to be a long one, and it is a set back when the United States falters in supporting democratic values. President Bush claims to sympathise with a different sort of Islam: tolerant, pluralistic. But when he allies himself, in the fight against fundamentalism, with thuggish rulers, his claim rings hollow.

And Muslims everywhere know that President Putin has been engaged since 1999 in a ruthless campaign against the Muslim population of Chechnya. They know that just this week he rigged an election in that rebellious province by forcing every credible candidate but his own to withdraw.

When he praises President Putin's vision of "democracy and freedom and rule of law in Russia", how can President Bush expect anyone to believe that he is any more serious about his own commitment to democracy and freedom in Afghanistan or Iraq?

© Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service