Why George W. Bush is the Arab Spring's forgotten man
On Nov. 6, 2003, then President George W. Bush gave a major foreign policy address in which he called for the spread of democracy across the Middle East, an appeal that seems to be resonating in this year of Arab Spring revolts.
Yet less than three years after leaving office, Bush's name isn't associated with the uprisings from Cairo to Tripoli, and he gets little credit for having inspired them. That's in marked contrast with President Ronald Reagan, whose 1987 exhortation "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" in Berlin became the defining cry of a leader now lionized for having ended the Cold War. In his speech eight years ago, delivered scarcely seven months after he'd invaded Iraq in the face of widespread international opposition, Bush sought to make freedom in the Middle East an extension of Reagan's legacy.
