Secretary Rice’s grand strategy to transform the Muslim world through “democracy” is failing on all fronts, plunging the entire region into Islam inspired chaos, and yet she stubbornly clings to a policy embodied in one cliché after another. From Bloomberg:
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the U.S. will no longer give explicit support to governments that are not elected, suggesting that spreading democracy now takes priority over maintaining political stability.
“The past 60 years of trying to buy stability at the expense of democracy is now gone,” Rice said at a press conference in Blackburn, England, that was televised by the British Broadcasting Corp. The policy was one of “Middle East exceptionalism,” she said.
The comments strengthen assertions Rice made yesterday about the diplomatic priorities of the world’s largest military power three years after it led an invasion of Iraq. Seeking to win over opponents of U.S. actions, Rice called the change in policy “one of the most important” her government has made. She didn’t say specifically what the change would mean or name countries that are affected.
Rice was greeted by protesters for a second day on her visit to Blackburn, the constituency of U.K. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and home to about 28,000 Muslims. Earlier today she met with local Muslims behind closed doors to discuss issues ranging from the U.S. prisoner of war camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to women’s rights in Islamic societies…