Says Russia's retreat from democracy and ties to Iran pose threat.
Natan Sharansky, whom President Bush recently called a "soul mate" in the battle to spread democracy around the world, urged the American leader Thursday to deliver a "tough speech" at the G8 Summit in St. Petersburg next month chastising Russia's retreat from democracy and insisting that Vladimir Putin make a bold choice for freedom instead of dictatorship and tyranny.
Sharansky also warned that Russia's increasingly close military, economic and nuclear ties to the radical government of Iran -- symbolized by a meeting Thursday between Vladimir Putin and Mahhoud Ahmadinejad at a conference in Shanghai, China -- pose a serious threat not only to Israel but to the U.S. and Europe.
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Speaking to U.S. State and Defense Department officials, Congressional staff, policy analysts and journalists at a private luncheon at The Heritage Foundation -- followed by a public address at Heritage entitled, "Is Freedom For Everyone?" -- Sharansky praised Vice President Cheney's May 4th speech in Vilnius, Lithuania in which Cheney challenged the Kremlin to choose a path towards becoming a truly "healthy, vibrant" democracy.
"It was a great speech, and not just because he quoted me," Sharansky said. But he added that the choice of venue was a mistake. "The speech should have been given in Russia or in Washington." This would have sent the clearest message to Putin. Instead, Sharansky said the remarks were widely perceived by politicians on the left and right in Russia as a specific defense of Lithuania in its on-going conflicts with the Kremlin.
Sharansky also said he believed it was a mistake for the West to reward Putin's behavior over the last several years with the prize of hosting the summit of major industrialized nations. "Being the host of the G8 Summit is a tremendous victory for Putin, for the hawks, after all his anti-democratic moves," he said. "I hope President Bush will give a tough speech in St. Petersburg" in favor of freedom and democracy, similar to Cheney's.
I asked Sharansky if he really expected Putin to step down voluntarily in 2008, given all the power he has centralized to himself since 2000. Sharansky said he honestly was not sure. Putin appears to be grooming a successor, but he said it was certainly possible that at the last minute Putin would find an excuse to stay.
Sharansky urged Congress and the White House to "do more" to support pro-democracy dissidents inside Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority. He expressed his opposition to his own government's proposed unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank, saying such a move will only reward Hamas terrorists and could destabilize Jordan and potentially lead to the overthrow of the Hashemite Kingdom.
Overall, Sharansky said he has been encouraged by the dramatic advances of freedom in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Ukraine and Georgia over the past several years. But he said he is concerned the Bush administration has been losing its passion and consistency on the democracy agenda in recent months, in part because Washington seems so divided over whether and how to proceed with such an agenda.
"Freedom is for everyone, and spreading freedom is such an American idea....The question is not, 'Why is President Bush so alone in the world in trying to advance freedom and democracy?'" Sharansky said. "The question is, 'Why is the President so alone in Washington?'" CRO
copyright
2006 Joel C. Rosenberg
