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Home > News & Policies > November 2003

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For Immediate Release
November 7, 2003

Global Message

From remarks by President Bush at the 20th Anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy, 11/6/03

*As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export.

*The United States has adopted a new policy, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. In every region of the world, the advance of freedom leads to peace.

*Our commitment to democracy is being tested in the Middle East, and must be a focus of American policy for decades to come.

*The peoples of the Middle East are not beyond the reach of liberty. Every person has the ability and the right to be free.

*Islam -- the faith of one-fifth of humanity -- is consistent with democratic rule. A freedom deficit has terrible consequences for the people of the Middle East and for the world.

*In many Middle Eastern countries, whole societies remain stagnant while the world moves ahead. These are the failures of political and economic doctrines -- not of culture or religion.

*The people of the Middle East deserve responsible leadership. For too long, many people in that region have been victims and subjects -- they deserve to be active citizens.

*As we watch and encourage reforms in the region, we are mindful that modernization is not the same as Westernization. Representative governments in the Middle East will reflect their own cultures. They will not, and should not, look like us.

*The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution.

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