The greatest weapon in the arsenal of democracy is the desire for liberty written into the human heart by our Creator. So long as we remain true to our ideals, we will defeat the extremists in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will help those countries' peoples stand up functioning democracies in the heart of the broader Middle East. And when that hard work is done and the critics of today recede from memory, the cause of freedom will be stronger, a vital region will be brighter, and the American people will be safer.
The president framed the current conflict against Islamic extremists within the larger narrative of America's battles with evil ideologies, naming Nazism and Communism and discussing World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. He stressed instances during which the naysayers were wrong about foreign lands with foreign cultures not being able to adopt democracy.
He and others have made these arguments before, but, to Sean Hannity's frustration, the president must continually remind people why we're fighting this fight. The barrage of bad news from the media weakens our will and emboldens our enemies, and so our cause must be defended again and again not just abroad but here at home. At least that's what they say.
I'm no expert on Middle East affairs, and I don't know what chance there is of democracy succeeding in that part of the world. I do know that liberty and democracy are not the same thing (odd that a Republican says otherwise), that democracy has its own potential for tyranny, and that the conflicts in Iraq are far too complex, volatile, and intricate to pacify simply by killing terrorists and establishing a particular system of government. If Bush's speeches are any indication of how he sees and thinks about the world, then he thinks simplistically and in concealing binary oppositions, using big words for small matters, as Joe Sobran argues. He speaks of Iraq as one front in the War on Terror, seemingly ignorant of the (at least) eight fronts currently present. He warns us that we must fight the extremists over there else we'll have to fight them here, illogically assuming that our enemies can't do both.
President Bush seems to see the world primarily in broad categories: good, evil, liberty, tyranny, democracy, dictatorship, safety, and terror; and he divides the world into these very real categories. Unfortunately his dividing the world in such a rigidly binary manner blinds him to the minute matters that should demand his attention as the most powerful man in the world.