US seen retreating from democracy push

The United States has quietly retreated from its high-profile push for democracy in the Muslim world, since the Hamas election stunned the Bush administration by bringing a violent militant group to power. Despite President Bush's continued public focus on democratization, analysts say US policy-makers saw the Hamas victory in the Palestinian territories as part of a potentially dangerous trend following democratic gains for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Hezbollah in Lebanon. In each instance, elections were seen to boost adversaries of US ally Israel, and in the case of Hamas and Hezbollah, groups labeled as terrorist organizations by Washington. The experience in Iraq, which US officials once envisioned as the catalyst for democratic change in Arab countries, has emerged instead as a disturbing symbol of sectarian strife. "Frankly, the administration has retreated even from a passive push for democracy," said Michael Rubin, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. Washington is now largely silent about actions taken by Middle East regimes to suppress political opposition. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who made an impassioned speech about democracy in Cairo last year, did not publicly criticize Egypt's repressive tactics during her recent visit. "A lot of regimes are detecting a green light to go back to the past," Rubin said. "It's undercut any kind of credibility the United States has, not just now but well into the future, in any calls for reform." The credibility problem is complicated by Bush's use of the democracy theme in speeches. Before the UN General Assembly, he portrayed the United States as a friend of freedom but cited autocratic regimes, including Saudi Arabia, as reformers. "People in the region know about the Saudi government. They're not naive," said Thomas Carothers, head of the Democracy and Rule of Law Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The perception of hypocrisy is extremely high," he said.