Bush finds believer in Georgian leader

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen

By

TBILISI, Georgia -- President Bush's vision of spreading freedom and democracy throughout the world has found a home in the heart of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili.

The 37-year-old, U.S.-educated freedom fighter who led a popular uprising in 2003 dubbed the "Rose Revolution," which ousted a former top Soviet official from power told The Washington Times yesterday that the U.S. president is on the right side of history.

"It's a new kind of ideology that we have from this president that's kind of crystallized now. It is idealistic. It's a much more moral position. It's also a very winning positive position," Mr. Saakashvili said.

"I think President Bush was very fast to capture this mood," he added.

The two leaders stood shoulder to shoulder this week in Freedom Square, once called Lenin Square, and spoke in soaring rhetoric about the prospect of freedom and democracy to transform the world.

The boyish leader of this nation of 4.4 million people sees the sweep of peaceful uprisings in the Middle East and former Soviet Union in the past 18 months as proof that the desire for freedom is universal.

Everybody, he said, was cynical about Bush's speech at his second inaugural, which laid out his vision to spread democracy.

"But look at what's happening in Lebanon, what's happening in Egypt, what happened with [election] turnout in Iraq. After all, this vision works, against all the odds, against all the skeptics, against all the cynical remarks. Appeasement and trying to please dictators, in the long run, it's very stupid policy."

The sudden movement toward democracy does not surprise Mr. Saakashvili.

"In the era of television, the message spreads very fast and things start to look very similar," he said.