Similarly, as Reagan said the spread of democracy was not "cultural imperialism" or "cultural condescension," Bush assured listeners that "as we watch and encourage reforms in the region, we are mindful that modernization is not the same as westernization."
Bush spoke of the doubts that greeted Reagan's speech -- some of the same doubts that have been voiced in Europe and at home about Bush's policies. "Some observers on both sides of the Atlantic pronounced the speech simplistic and naive, and even dangerous," Bush said. "In fact, Ronald Reagan's words were courageous and optimistic and entirely correct."
At the White House, President Bush meets Army Pvt. Phillip Ramsey, who was wounded outside Baghdad.
(Rich Lipski -- The Washington Post)
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_____Live Discussion_____
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Live, Noon ET: Washington Post staff writer David Von Drehle will discuss the president's speech and the direction of U.S. foreign policy.
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In describing Bush's speech, one of his aides even used the words from Reagan's speech. "It's never, in the end, about bombs and rockets; it's about ideas and broadening the struggle and elevating it to a moral cause," the aide said. Reagan, in his speech to the British Parliament, said: "For the ultimate determinant in the struggle now going on for the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas -- a trial of spiritual resolve."
Bush aides said the speech, carried on Radio Sawa, an Arabic-language network of the U.S. government in the Middle East, was designed in part to show that he is undeterred by the setbacks and criticism. The aides said Bush aimed to deflate some international distrust of U.S. motives by acknowledging the nation's support for autocracies in the past as he spoke of "60 years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe, because in the long run stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty."
White House communications director Dan Bartlett said Bush's chief speechwriter, Michael J. Gerson, had been talking to the president since early October about articulating and explaining "this aggressive new posture in American foreign policy."
"Our foreign policy is much broader than just the issue of preemption," Bartlett said. "The speech was not designed to talk about the rationale for the war itself, but about the ultimate vision that guides our actions and that our actions should be judged by."
Bush likened the battle against Iraqi insurgents to struggles against communism. "As in the defense of Greece in 1947, and later in the Berlin Airlift, the strength and will of free peoples are now being tested before a watching world -- and we will meet this test," he said. Though Bush did not repeat Reagan's call for a "crusade" -- a word with poor historical associations for Muslims -- he invoked the power of God, saying "we can be certain the author of freedom is not indifferent to the fate of freedom."
Former representative Vin Weber (R-Minn.), a presidential adviser who is the National Endowment for Democracy's chairman, said the speech should answer the questions of people who thought Bush did not have a plan for Iraq or the Middle East. "History says the American people are idealistic and want their leaders to represent those ideals," Weber said. "The president made it clear he is that leader."
