HOOVER: So, we’re gonna get more to Iran, but first I’d like to go back and talk about your role during the Bush Administration at the State Department. You were the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs in the Department of State, and one of the areas of focus was on Democracy promotion as a tool for peacekeeping around the world. And I wonder if you still support and believe that the promotion of Democracy is an important tool for securing American peace and support what the Bush Administration called the freedom agenda.
REP. CHENEY: I do. I do believe, absolutely, that those fundamental values of freedom and liberty on which we were founded are morally right and that those are values that we ought to do everything we can to help to support and defend.
HOOVER: And the critics of that, especially in the context of the last administration, will point towards the Middle East and say that there are just some cultures that are culturally inhospitable to the ideas of Democracy or the institutions that are prerequisites for Democracy. What do you say to that?
REP. CHENEY: I think that’s racist. You know, I think if you look at — it’s not just Democracy. Democracy is a very important part of human freedom. Women’s empowerment is a very important part of freedom, I believe, economic empowerment. What we know is that all of those elements of free societies are the ones that are successful and the ones that create progress for human beings, and I believe we have a fundamental obligation to help to not just defend those in the United States but our freedom and our success and our economic prosperity depends upon free societies around the world.
HOOVER: Do you think it’s possible for Democracy to flourish in the Middle East?
REP. CHENEY: I do. I mean, I think you have examples of that. I mean, certainly Israel is an example of that. So I don’t believe that somehow there are only people of certain races that want to be free. I think that that, as I said before, I think that’s a racist way to look at it.
HOOVER: Could Democracy flourish in Saudi Arabia and in Iran?
CHENEY: I certainly think that people have the right in all places and at all times to be free. And I think that when you look today at our relationship with Saudi Arabia, a lot of it — it helps us to block Iran. It helps us in terms of stability in the region. But i certainly think — and when i was at the State Department — spent a lot of time talking to the Saudis about how important it was that women not be treated as second-class citizens. And i think those things still matter, and I think there are many societies, including the Saudis, that have a long way to go in that regard.
Cheney On Our Strategy When Dealing With Iran
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