StarTribune Editorial: Bait and switch / The neocon case for war in Iraq

[Love Bug]

In an appearance Tuesday before a skeptical Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz declared that "the peace in Iraq is now the central battle in the war on terror." That same refrain has begun to pop up in statements by President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney -- as well as the neoconservative thinkers and writers who provide the intellectual framework for this administration's approach to foreign and defense policies. It begins to get down to the bedrock rationale for going to war in Iraq.

Strands of that rationale have been around for years, but they weren't given public emphasis -- not in the 2000 presidential campaign and not in the prewar debate about whether to invade Iraq. If you piece together those strands, the rationale, prewar, went like this:

Saddam Hussein is a brutal tyrant who routinely thumbs his nose at the United States. His interest in weapons of mass destruction -- if not his possession of them -- is well-established, meaning he may become a threat to the United States and its friends at some point. Moreover, he is in violation of numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions. The United States can make a case for ousting him by military force -- a case that can't be made for any other Middle East leader. So Saddam's the guy.

Removing Saddam will do a number of positive things. In his place the United States and friends can build a peaceful, prosperous, democratic, secular state in Iraq. That in turn will be a powerful catalyst for promoting change and reform throughout the Islamic world. Oppressive, corrupt regimes will become vulnerable because people across the region will want what the Iraqi people now have. And Islamic reform is key to removing the conditions that breed terrorism.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/561/4016541.html

[xchrom]

1. secular

remains to be seen.