Retreat from the Freedom Agenda -Bush to welcome Azerbaijan autocrat

[rodeodance]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/23/AR2006042301017.html

By Jackson Diehl
Monday, April 24, 2006; Page A17

President Bush's retreat from the ambitious goals of his second term will proceed one small but fateful step further this Friday. That's when, after more than two years of stalling, the president will deliver a warm White House welcome to Ilham Aliyev, the autocratic and corrupt but friendly ruler of one of the world's emerging energy powers, Azerbaijan.

Here's why this is a tipping point: At the heart of Bush's democracy doctrine was the principle that the United States would abandon its Cold War-era practice of propping up dictators -- especially in the Muslim world -- in exchange for easy access to their energy resources and military cooperation. That bargain, we now know, played a major role in the emergence of al-Qaeda and other extremist anti-Western movements.
........

Aliyev is nevertheless getting everything he might have hoped for from Bush. Aid is being boosted, the Pentagon is drawing up plans for extensive military cooperation -- and there is the White House visit, which the 44-year-old Azeri president has craved ever since he took over from his dad three years ago. If Nazarbayev chooses, he will be next. He has been offered not just a Washington tour but a reciprocal visit by Bush to Kazakhstan.

Why the retreat on the democracy principle? Azeri observers speculate that Bush may want Aliyev's help with Iran, which is its neighbor and contains a large Azeri ethnic minority. But administration officials tell me a more pressing reason is a rapidly intensifying campaign by Russia to restore its dominion over former Soviet republics such as Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan -- and to drive the United States out of the region.

[Selatius]

1. The US is in the wrong neighborhood here

When you're in Russia and Iran's backyard, you're asking for trouble.

[enigma000]

2. So what is the proper course of action?

Stick with the human rights focus or the realpolitik option? It's a toughie.

[lostexpectation]

3. Two days to watch (or copy) How to Plan a Revolution BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/programmes/index.shtml?id=this_world

How to Plan a Revolution

After a corrupt election in Azerbaijan, This World follows the campaign of young political activists, who plan to stage a peaceful "Orange Revolution".

The team follow two well educated young men hoping to copy the Ukraine, they simply want 'democracy' they have a 'Soviet' autocrat to deal with but this time the autocrat is a Bush chum, they are willing to take US money to support there protests but they get no support from George Soras the NED or any Democratic or Republicans or the EU.