The Latecomers

Piero Fassino did not quite say that George Bush had been right all along: That would be going too far for the leader of an ex-communist party. But in an interview this week with La Stampa, Mr. Fassino did say that he had come to recognize that President Bush is "fighting for freedom and democracy" in the Middle East. The leader of ItalyÕs Left Democrats added that this fight has set in motion dramatic changes that promise to weaken the forces of religious extremism in the region.

Mr. Fassino remains a fierce opponent of both the Iraq war and the Bush presidency. But he is not blind. Within days of the successful Iraqi elections, a wave of change swept the region: peaceful protests in Lebanon against Syrian occupation, local elections in Saudi Arabia, the amendment of the Egyptian constitution to permit opposition candidates, official support for womenÕs suffrage in Kuwait, and many other examples besides.

Nor is Mr. Fassino blind to his own political advantage. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has stumbled from uncertainty to uncertainty over recent days. First he won a vote in Parliament extending the deployment of the 3,300 Italian troops in Iraq. Then he high-handedly told a television interviewer he would begin withdrawing the troops in September. Then he reconsidered once more and promised to withdraw the troops only after consulting with ItalyÕs coalition partners, the US and the UK.

Mr. BerlusconiÕs stumble opened a low-cost opportunity for Mr. Fassino to present himself as a moderate, fair-minded, and pro-democratic leader - and to distance himself from the shrill, delusional accusations of Giulana Sgrena and the far left.

So long as Italian troops remain egaged in the war on terror, there will remain a large and substantial difference between Mr. Berlusconi and his left-wing critics. But once the troops come home, the gap shrinks away: If ItalyÕs support for the war is reduced to a matter of words and UN votes, Mr. BerlusconiÕs opponents will find it far easier to match him.

Still, it is interesting and important that Mr. BerlusconiÕs opponents should ITAL wish END ITAL to match him. Why are they not content to loiter out there in Michael Moore land, pedaling conspiracy theories and chanting slogans about war and oil?

Mr. FassinoÕs La Stampa interview offers a clue. At one point he tells the interviewer that it is necessary to acknowledge that President Bush is acting on very different principles from previous Republican presidents, such as Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, or BushÕs own father.Those men, acting on the advice of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger or (in the case of the elder Bush) KissingerÕs disciple Brent Scowcroft, often found themselves supporting dictators and other unsavory regimes in the name of anti-communism.

The younger Bush, however, is following the tradition of Ronald Reagan. In the 1980s, Reagan faced multiple global crises: not only a Soviet arms buildup in Europe, but also communist insurgencies in Central America and threats to the stability of authoritarian American allies in East Asia: South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines. A small cadre of mid-level aides argued that the surest way to defeat communism and to strengthen AmericaÕs position in the world was by encouraging democracy in non-democratic allied states.

A young Assistant Secretary of State named Paul Wolfowitz organized the campaign of pressure that forced Ferdinand Marcos out of power in the Philippines and that led to elections in South Korea.

Another assistant secretary, Elliott Abrams, argued that the United States would never be taken seriously as a defender of democracy in Central America until it forced Augusto Pinochet out of power in Cile. Abrams incessantly pressed for elections in El Salvador and Guatemala as essential to the defeat of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

And although apartheid South Africa had its defenders among some conservatives, these same mid-level officials argued that American support for democratization there would constitute a global test of American commitment to the ideals it professes.

Fifteen years later, East Asia is a zone of advancing democracy , every government in the western hemisphere except CubaÕs is an elected one, and South Africa has made a peaceful transition to a government representing all its citizens. The mid-level aides I mentioned, plus many others, who witnessed the power of the democratic ideal in the Cold War have now risen to high office - and have committed the United States to a new policy of democratization in the Middle East.

The European left has long given lip service to the international support of democracy. And yet, when George Bush adopted this very policy as his own after 9/11, the leaders of the European left began to fret about stability, sovereignty, and the supreme right of local despots to wield power free from foreign interference. After all those years of fulminating against Henry Kissinger, the European left overnight became more Kissingerian than Kissinger himself had ever been.

Is this outcome not ironic? Is it not embarrassing? And might it not explain Mr. FassinoÕs sudden, overdue, but still welcome praise for a president who - whatever his faults - has committed the United States more whole-heartedly to the support of democracy worldwide than any of EuropeÕs self-declared leaders of conscience?