Democracy by Dominos (3/26/03)

by Dean Hartwell

During the Vietnam War, the New York Times published government documents called the "Pentagon Papers." These papers, leaked to the Times by Defense Department contractor and former employee Daniel Ellsberg, showed that several presidents had lied about our involvement in Southeast Asia. Unfortunately, the Pentagon Papers came out in 1971, too late to save most of the 58,000 troops who lost their lives in Vietnam.

Today, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has published an article named "Origins of Regime Change in Iraq." It details the genesis of the Bush Administration's foreign policy in the Middle East. Like the Pentagon Papers, the article may shed light on the Bush Administration's intentions there.

Several conservative Republicans combined to write the documents. Many of them, including Paul Wolfowitz, now serve in the Bush Administration. The Defense Policy Guideline stated that the goal of United States foreign policy should be to "prevent the rise of any nation that could challenge the United States." Several of the collaborators, including current Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, urged then-President Clinton in 1998 to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

Current events reflect this value, as the Bush Administration has sent 250,000 troops to invade Iraq, calling for the end of the Saddam Hussein "regime." The Bush Administration has stressed repeatedly that it believes Hussein threatens our nation.

Assisting Israel in rolling back the Palestinians forms another tenet of the policy blueprint. Richard Perle, another Bush Administration aide, helped write a policy calling for the U.S. to convince Israel to break off negotiations with the Palestinians. Instead, the policy stresses for the right of preemptive attacks for the United States and its allies. Not coincidentally, President Bush says the United States has the right to strike Iraq preemptively.

According to the documents, we can expect to see more efforts of "regime change" in the Middle East. The collaborators believe that with a democratic Iraq and Palestine, a "majority of Arabs will come to see America as the essential ally." Other Arab nations, seeing democracy work in these two places, would demand democracy for themselves, the theory goes.

Does this last belief sound familiar? It should. Our leaders pushed a "domino theory" publicly about the Vietnam War, saying that if we allowed one nation to turn communist, other nations in Southeast Asia would follow suit. The dominos never did fall the way our leaders feared. Our current Administration can learn a valuable lesson from the Vietnam-era leaders and state more clearly why we are at war.

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