Bush's Legacy - No Democracy In Afghanistan & Iraq

The LA Times reports that, "[s]ecurity in large areas of Afghanistan has so deteriorated that U.S. and U.N. officials fear that plans to hold presidential elections in June may be in jeopardy."

The security situation threatens to undermine the goals of the 2001 Bonn agreement which placed the U.N. in charge of supervising Afghanistan's transition to a constitutional democracy. The violence in Afghanistan "has worsened dramatically in the last six months" and now "at least five of Afghanistan's 32 provinces are virtually off-limits to foreigners." That means that registering voters and holding elections in those five, mostly rural, regions may not be possible. If rural voters are excluded, the results of the election could be seen as illegitimate. Yesterday, only 100 of 330 delegates attended a preliminary session of the loya jirga (the council that elects the Afghan leadership) – which some suggest is the result of intimidation from the resurgent Taliban. Barnett Rubin, a professor at NYU and an Afghanistan expert, said that "The election in Afghanistan was supposed to be a benchmark of success for the Bush administration." - The Progress Report


Bush is now in the awkward position of argueing against democratic elections in Iraq, while still promoting democracy.

US Resistance to Direct Vote Tries Patience of Shiite Clerics

Realities Overtake Arab Democracy Drive

Bush 'idealism' [i.e. speeches] at odds with realities of democracy

The Mideast as arc of freedom - or false hope

Democracy cannot coexist with Bush's failed doctrine of preventive war