(2005-02-26) — In another setback for the Bush administration, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak told a national TV audience Saturday that he would impose democratic presidential elections on this tranquil Arab dictatorship.

Mr. Mubarak — who has run unopposed every six years since becoming president in 1981 after the assassination of Anwar Sadat — called for “more freedom and democracy” and asked parliament to amend the constitution to allow “direct, secret balloting, giving the chance for political parties to run for the presidential elections and providing guarantees that allow more than one candidate for the people to choose among them with their own will”

Democrats in the U.S. Congress wasted no time pointing out that White House foreign policy had failed again.

“How is President Bush going to carry out his promise to invade dictatorships and impose freedom if they keep announcing changes like this?” said an unnamed Democrat Senator. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a domino effect, with one Arab nation after another falling into the democracy camp, thereby making the Bush foreign policy an obsolete embarrassment.”

In completely unrelated news, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cancelled an expected trip to Egypt the night before Mr. Mubarak announced the democratic reforms.