Democracy ‘necessary’ in Iraq

President Bush yesterday said democracy in Iraq is an imperative, not an option, as Sen. John Kerry has asserted, and that the world should thank Israel for swapping land with Palestinians.

Without mentioning Mr. Kerry by name, the president made clear that he disagreed with the Massachusetts Democrat’s remark last week that the goal in Iraq is stability, not democracy.

Asked by a newspaper executive who cited Mr. Kerry’s remark whether democracy in Iraq is an option or an imperative, the president replied: “It’s necessary.”

“It’s what will change the world — help change the world,” he said at a Washington gathering of the Newspaper Association of America, the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Associated Press. “And you either believe people can self-govern, or not.”

Similarly, he said, people can disagree over whether “democracy is possible in that part of the world.”

“And I think it is.”

Last week, Mr. Kerry said the United States should not wait until democracy takes hold in Iraq to withdraw military forces.

“With respect to getting our troops out, the measure is the stability of Iraq,” he said. He added that democracy “shouldn’t be the measure of when you leave.”

“I have always said from Day One that the goal here,” he added, “is a stable Iraq, not whether or not that’s a full democracy.”

The president, in a wide-ranging speech that was followed by a question-and-answer session, issued his strongest endorsement yet of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to annex portions of the West Bank from the Palestinians. In return, Mr. Sharon pledged last week to withdraw Jewish settlements from other portions of the West Bank and all of the Gaza Strip.

“In my judgment, the whole world should have said, ’Thank you, Ariel,’ ” Mr. Bush said. “Now we have a chance to begin the construction of a peaceful Palestinian state.

“Yet there was kind of silence, wasn’t there? Because the responsibility is hard,” he added. “It’s hard to be responsible for promoting freedom and peace when you’re used to something else.”

It was a reference to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, whose support for terrorism has prompted Mr. Sharon to disengage from efforts to negotiate a final peace agreement with the Palestinians. Both he and Mr. Bush are pushing for the emergence of new Palestinian leadership.

“The Palestinian leadership has failed the people year after year after year,” he said. “And now is the time for the world to step up and take advantage of this opportunity and help to build a Palestinian state that’s committed to the principles of individual rights, and rule of law.”

The president was occasionally jocular with the newspaper executives, at one point addressing those at the head table as “members of the Politburo.” The editors and publishers chuckled at this reference to the chief political and executive committee of the Communist Party.

At another point, Mr. Bush spoke approvingly of being compared to an Old West gunslinger. The comparison had been suggested by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

Turning serious, Mr. Bush fielded a question about a poll showing that two-thirds of Americans say the United States will be struck by terrorists again.

“Well, I can understand why they think they’re going to get hit again,” he said. “They saw what happened in Madrid. This is a hard country to defend.”

“Our intelligence is good. It’s just never perfect, is the problem,” he added.

The president also disclosed that China initially was reluctant to participate in multilateral talks with North Korea, where dictator Kim Jong-il has developed nuclear weapons.

“The only way to convince Kim Jong-il to disarm is to get China very much involved in the process,” Mr. Bush said. “It wasn’t easy work because the Chinese felt it was the U.S. responsibility, and they really didn’t want to have equity in the process.”

But he added: “When Jiang Zemin came to Crawford, he was quick to stand up and say, ’We don’t want any nuclear weapons in the Korean Peninsula.’ ”

The president also expressed concern about China’s impact on the economy of the United States and the rest of the world.

“The problem we have in the world, by the way, today is that China is cranking up their economy,” he said. “Steel prices are high, energy prices are high, because demand in China is really high. And that’s what we’re faced with.

“We’re faced with a world economy that’s beginning to recover, with supplies getting tight,” he added. “And without an energy plan, without additional supply, it’s going to make us hard to stay competitive, as well as prosperous, in the long run.”

Still, the president cited various statistics that show a booming American economy.

“It’s amazing that we’re growing in spite of the fact that we’ve been through a recession, a war, an emergency and corporate scandals — which speaks to the resiliency of the American people and the strength of the entrepreneurial spirit,” he said.