Bush Outlines Vision for Expanding Democracy in Mideast

President Bush described today a vision of how democracy could unfold in the Middle East and beyond once Iraq is stabilized, challenging Iran, Syria and one crucial American ally in the region — Egypt — to end traditions of authoritarianism.

Mr. Bush directly compared what he called a new, "forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East" to Ronald Reagan's 1982 declaration in England that Soviet communism had failed, and to American efforts to spread democracy in Asia in the wake of World War II.

Speaking today before the National Endowment for Democracy, created by Congress in the Reagan administration, Mr. Bush named four other countries where he said dictatorship was doomed: North Korea, Burma, Cuba and Zimbabwe. "These regimes cannot hold back freedom forever," Mr. Bush said. He predicted that just as Nelson Mandela emerged from captivity in South Africa to lead the nation, "one day, from prison camps and prison cells, and from exile, the leaders of new democracies will arrive" in each of those countries.

Mr. Bush has sounded similar themes before, notably in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute a month and a half before he ordered the invasion of Iraq. But until today's speech he did not name countries that urgently needed to reform. And for the first time, gingerly, he raised the issue of the absence of liberty in Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Bush's treatment of Iraq was notably different than in his speeches. He made no mention of weapons of mass destruction, which American investigators are still searching for, so far with little success. Nor did he declare any success in Iraq, telling the invited audience that "the establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution." But he also made it clear that the United States cannot afford to let the democratization of the country blow off course, as some officials in his administration fear.

"The failure of Iraqi democracy would embolden terrorists around the world, increase dangers to the American people, and extinguish the hopes of millions in the region," Mr. Bush said. "Iraqi democracy will succeed — and that success will send forth the news, from Damascus to Teheran — that freedom can be the future of every nation."

Two hours later, Mr. Bush gathered leaders of the House and Senate and his national security team in the East Room and signed the legislation that provides $87 billion to military action and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan. In that ceremony, flanked by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Mr. Bush called the money "the greatest commitment of its kind since the Marshall Plan," even though only $20 billion of the amount is going to reconstruction and aid.

The Marshall Plan, which financed the reconstruction of Europe, did not pay for the costs of ongoing military occupation activities.

At moments in his speech, Mr. Bush's language was sweeping. "Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe," he said, "because in the long run stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty."

But as he listed the actions under way in the region, he heaped the most scorn on Iran and Syria. "The regime in Tehran must heed the democratic demands of the Iranian people or lose its last claim to legitimacy," the president declared, his harshest comments about the country since it appeared to begin cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency over its suspected nuclear weapons program. He lumped Syria's leaders with Mr. Hussein, saying they had promised a restoration of ancient glories but instead had left "a legacy of torture, oppression, misery and ruin."

But Mr. Bush praised the leaders of Saudi Arabia — among the most resistant to democratic change in the region but also one of the most critical American allies and oil suppliers — for their willingness to hold democratic elections, and suggested they were on the cusp of change.