President Bush and Prime Minister Blair Talk About Democracy (Excerpt of the November 12, 2004 Press Conference at the White House)

Q You know, you talk about democracy being so necessary. There are those who would say there is sometimes a harsh peace of a dictator. What if the Palestinian state comes up with somebody who is not a democrat, but is willing to have peace with the Israelis? And let me transfer that to the Iraqis, as well. What if the Iraqis come up with somebody who's not friendly to the United States, is not a democrat, but it's peaceful, is this something you can live with?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, first of all, if there's an election, the Iraqis will have come up with somebody who is duly-elected. In other words, democracy will have spoken. And that person is going to have to listen to the people, not to the whims of a dictator, not to their own desires -- personal desires. The great thing about democracy is you actually go out and ask the people for a vote, as you might have noticed recently. And the people get to decide, and they get to decide the course of their future. And so it's a contradiction in terms to say a dictator gets elected. The person who gets elected is chosen by the people. And so I don't -- I'm not --

Q You can be elected and be a tyrant.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, you can be elected and then be a strong man, and then you get voted out, so long as you end up honoring democracy. But if you're true to democracy, you'll listen to the people, not to your own desires. If you're true to democracy, you'll do what the people want you to do. That's the difference between democracy and a tyrant.

And the Palestinians may decide to elect a real strong personality. But we'll hold their feet to the fire to make sure that democracy prevails, that there are free elections. And if they don't -- the people of the Palestinian Territory don't like the way this person is responding to their needs, they will vote him or her out.

And the reason why I'm so strong on democracy is democracies don't go to war with each other. And the reason why is the people of most societies don't like war, and they understand what war means. And one of these days the people of the Palestinian -- the Palestinians will realize that there is a bright future because freedom is taking hold -- a future that enables their children to get educated; a future in which they can start their businesses; a future in which they're certain that the money that's going into the treasury of their government is being spent fairly, in a transparent way; a future in which corruption is not the norm; a future in which rule of law prevails. And that leads to a peaceful society.

I've got great faith in democracies to promote peace. And that's why I'm such a strong believer that the way forward in the Middle East, the broader Middle East, is to promote democracy. I readily concede there are skeptics, people who say democracy is not possible in certain societies. But, remember, that was said right after World War II with Japan. And today one of the people that I work closest with is my friend, Prime Minister Koizumi. And it's a -- it's remarkable to me that we sit down at the same table, talking about keeping the peace in places like North Korea, and it really wasn't all that long ago in the march of history that we were enemies.

The Prime Minister knows Koizumi. He's a good man. And he's an ally because democracy took hold in Japan. And yet there was a lot of skeptics. When you look at the writings right after World War II a lot of people said, you're wasting your time to try to promote democracy in Japan. There were some, I suspect maybe in Great Britain and I know in America, that were writing, you're wasting your time to promote democracy in Germany, after World War II. And yet, fortunately, people who preceded us had great faith in liberty to transform societies. And that's what we're talking about is taking place.

And it's hard and it's difficult, particularly in a society like Iraq, because the terrorists understand the stakes of freedom. And they're willing to kill people in brutal fashion to stop it. And I believe we have a duty and an obligation to work to make sure democracy takes told. It's a duty to our own country. It's a duty to generations of Americans and children of Great Britain to help secure the peace by promoting democratic societies.

PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: First of all, I should say, Koizumi is a good man not just because I know him, but -- (laughter) -- although that helps a lot, I think. (Laughter.)

But I think the President said something here that I really think is very, very important. In the politics -- when I was first a member of Parliament and making my way up the greasy pole and all the rest of it, there was a view in foreign policy that you dealt with countries on the basis of whatever attitude they had towards you, but really whatever they did within their own countries, that was up to them, and didn't really make a difference to your long-term relationship.

I think what we are learning today is that there is not stability of any true, long-term kind without democratic rights for free people to decide their government. Now, that doesn't mean to say we try and interfere with every state around the world, but it does mean that there's been a shift, and I think a shift quite dramatically, since 9/11 in the thinking that is informing our view of how we make progress.

That's why it wasn't enough to go into Afghanistan and rout out al Qaeda or knock down the Taliban. We actually had to go there and say, no, we must replace that with a democratic form of government -- because, in the end, if we replace it simply with another dictator, then we'll get the same instability back. That's why in Iraq we decided when Saddam was removed, we didn't want another hard man coming in, another dictator.

Now, it's a struggle, because democracy is hard to bring into countries that have never had it before. But I've no doubt at all that the Iraqi people, given the chance -- and indeed, you can see this in some of the local elections now down in the south of Iraq -- given the chance, they'll want to elect their leaders. Why wouldn't they? I mean, why would they want a strong-arm leader who's going to have the secret police, no freedom of speech, no free press, no human rights, no proper law courts? The people want the freedom. What we recognized, I think, today, is that we're not going to have our security unless they get that freedom.

So when we come to the issue of Israel and Palestine, I think what we are saying is, we are going to work flat-out to deliver this. But people have to understand, we can't deliver something unless the people who it affects actually want it to happen. And we don't believe there will be a viable future for a state of Palestine unless it's based on certain key democratic principles.

Now, I think that's a tremendous thing. And I also think that in the end -- of course, you're right, people can vote for the people they'd like to vote for in elections, right? That's what democracy is about. I think we've got to have some faith, though, in the ability of ordinary people, decent people, to decide their own future. Because it's a curious thing, you look at all these Eastern European countries -- Central East European countries in the European Union now, just democracies over the last 10 years -- fierce election debates, change in the government, often difficult circumstances when the governments change. But you go to those countries and talk to the people there, and their sense of liberation and their sense of self-worth as a result of the freedom they have, that is the best testament to why it's sensible to have faith in democracy.

And sometimes when people say, well it's -- you've got a Republican President, and a progressive politician from across the water, but in my view, people from different sides of the political spectrum should be able to come together to argue that policy case, because democracy is something that should unite us, whatever political position we have.