IRAQ

Toronto Star: Bush doctrinaires

Analysts point to strong signs America's war machine will continue to roll
Despite denials, Syria and Iran appear to be next

Thank God for Helen Thomas.

She sits hunched over in the front row at White House press briefings and, as the slick boys and girls of the press corps respectfully clear their throats and try to catch Ari's eye, she goes in for the kill.

She's 82 years old, already. What does she have to fear from White House flaks and media spin-doctors?

And so, on Thursday, the legendary Ms. Thomas, formerly with UPI and now with Hearst, raised her head, squeezed one eye shut, took lethal aim and fired.

"Is the president contemplating any other regime changes in the Middle East," she asked Bush spokesperson Ari Fleischer. "I mean ... there seems to be something in the air that he may not stop with Iraq."

Bull's-eye!

It's more than something in the air in the administration of President George W. Bush. Even as fighting continues in Iraq, even amidst signs of chaos for the civilian population, there are warnings Operation Iraqi Freedom is about more than freedom for Iraq.

It's about reshaping the Middle East, say analysts and policy-makers alike (although they attribute different motives and results), and applying America's new foreign policy doctrine to the world.

"Duly armed, the United States can act to secure its safety and to advance the cause of liberty — in Baghdad and beyond," write Lawrence Kaplan and William Kristol in their best-selling The War Over Iraq, the Bush policy bible. It's subtitled: "Saddam's Tyranny And America's Mission."

The war against Iraq bears witness to the unfolding of this new policy — the Bush doctrine that evolved over a decade and was set in stone last September as the National Security Strategy of the United States.

Its architects are powerful players in the Bush administration. Master planner is Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defence secretary. Then, among many others, there's Vice-President Dick Cheney; Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; defence adviser Richard Perle; and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief-of-staff and national security adviser.

These are the fabled hawks of the Bush White House, the so-called "neo-cons" who, after 9/11, according to lore, hoisted neophyte student George Dubya firmly into their tribe.

The three principal elements of the Bush doctrine, as we see in Operation Iraqi Freedom, are pre-emptive strike, regime change and the supremacy of U.S. leadership in the world, backed by military might and guided by "moral authority."

There are no qualms about going it alone, or almost, without the United Nations.

"It's not totally new because Americans have always felt they can defend themselves anywhere," says Stephen Clarkson, Canadian author and visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre in Washington.

"What's new is the attitude, the close-mindedness, of the Bush group. This place is completely closed. They know the truth. It comes from God. They're right and everybody else is wrong."

Bush casts issues in terms of moral right and wrong. His is an Old Testament White House, of vengeance sayeth the Lord against the foes of America.

Freedom, said Bush on Friday, eyes cast heavenward, "is a gift from the Almighty God."

Toronto international criminal lawyer David Jacobs views the Bush doctrine as a "terrifying doctrine of empire ... wholly unlawful."

"The United States' almost religious fervour to control the planet is dangerous," says Jacobs.


But there are "many countries and peoples around the world who do not like the system and practices of the American government, and do not think the U.S. option holds advantages over their own. The rest of the planet does not believe the U.S. has the moral or legal authority to impose its views."

It does appear to have the military might.

There are more than 300,000 coalition troops on the ground in Iraq. And there are signs, despite denials, the Bush administration is already looking elsewhere in the region, starting with Syria and Iran.

Former CIA chief James Woolsey says we're poised on the brink of World War IV. He's a Bush hawk, touted to take over the information directorate in the provisional government in Iraq.

"This Fourth World War, I think, will last considerably longer than either the First or Second World Wars did for us," Woolsey told a UCLA conference last week, referring to the Cold War as World War III.

"Hopefully," he added, "not the full four decades of the Cold War."

That's not what Fleischer told Thomas when she asked about upcoming regime changes in the Middle East.

"Iraq is unique. Iraq presented a whole set of threats to the world that were unique," he replied, with condescension. "But every region in the world presents a unique set of challenges or difficulties for the United States, and for partners in peace, and each is dealt with separately."

"So," asked Thomas, "the answer is, no?"

Not likely, according to military analyst John Stanton, formerly with the conservative American Enterprise Institute think-tank.

"Nobody worth their salt in international relations believes this is just about Iraq.

"You've got to be dispassionate about it. It's about a vision, whether you like it or not, about taking care of festering problems. `Let's go in and clean house in Iran, in Syria and in other countries who harbour terrorists.'"

The hawks "believe there is no way the Middle East can be stabilized unless you deal with all those countries in the region. "This is not some conspiracy. They've been very open about their views; it's all out there. The reality is that they see things through a narrow prism. In order for things to be right, they say, `We've got to set things right in the Holy Land.'"

He says all the region's countries should be very nervous.

Bush doctrine advocate Perle told the Foreign Policy Institute in 2001: "We could deliver a short message, a two-word message: `You're next, You're next unless you stop the practice of supporting terrorism.''