If (big if) the US military is successful in playing catalyst for regime change in Iraq, and if (another big if) the successive Iraqi government turns out to be democratic, not simply differently barbaric (think Pinochet), what will the US policy be towards fostering a healthy civil society there? Look at how the US now behaves toward Russia, a country that experienced self-imposed regime change from an internally repressive and externally oppressive government to a budding, but still fragile, democracy. Don't forget, while Iraq has lots of oil but no confirmed weapons of mass destruction, Russia has both.
RIA Novosti
2 Feb 03
"The US administration has announced its intention to gradually halt its financial aid to Russia, beginning with 2004, in view of the strengthening Russian economy."
WHITE HOUSE ACKNOWLEDGED RUSSIAN ECONOMIC GROWTH
WASHINGTON, February 4th, 2003 /RIA Novosti correspondent Arkady Orlov/ -- The US administration has announced its intention to gradually halt its financial aid to Russia, beginning with 2004, in view of the strengthening Russian economy.
This is stated in the covering letter of the White House's budgetary department to the US draft federal budget for 2004, which was submitted to US Congress on Monday.
Ten years after the start of the financial aid to Russia and a number of other republics of the former Soviet Union, the time has come to exclude them from the economic aid list as has been the case with many East European states, the document says.
As the information service of the Department of State reports, in 2002 and 2003 the American financial aid to Russia amounted to 159 million and 148 million dollars respectively. But the draft budget for 2004 allocates the sum of only 73 million dollars.
In comparison with this year, the financial aid by the United States to Russia will be cut by 32 percent and later on will be stopped at all. The US will only contribute to the programmes for strengthening democracy and a civil society.
In the opinion of the American analysts, the decision of the George W. Bush administration to start "withdrawing" Russia from the list of countries receiving economic aid signifies the recognition of the fact that the present Russian leadership has succeeded in reaching the point when such aid is no longer needed.
Posted by Xander at February 4, 2003 10:36 PM | TrackBack