They are a prominent group of Washington conservative intellectuals who helped incubate the ideas behind the Bush administration’s war in Iraq. Now, they are pressing for regime change in neighboring Syria and Iran. At the center of their passions is Lebanon, a country once riven by sectarian violence, where pro-Western, Christian, and free-market forces hope to rise again. In his January 2003 State of the Union address, President Bush declared, “The gravest danger facing America and the world is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.” Building to his point, he offered a grim reckoning to the people of Iraq: “Your enemy is not surrounding your country – your enemy is ruling your country. And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation.”
It is no secret that many of the ideas that launched the war in Iraq – intertwining weapons of mass destruction and terrorism as evil twins, scorn for the sovereignty of disgraced governments, and belief in the transforming force of American power – have been nurtured and refined at the American Enterprise Institute, a 60-year old Washington think tank. Shortly after the fall of Baghdad to U.S. forces, AEI Vice President Danielle Pletka gave a blunt summation of the institute’s neo-conservative philosophy: “The question of whether we have the right to go in and remove a dictator ought to be a part of our thinking.”
Now, nearly a month into the American occupation of Iraq, many neoconservatives have set their sights on Syria and Iran. The government of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, in particular, has felt the ire of the Bush administration in the wake of allegations that it provided Saddam Hussein with night-vision equipment and allowed volunteer anti-American fighters cross its border to join the war in Iraq. American officials and neoconservative intellectuals have also charged that Syria is pursuing a chemical and biological weapons program.
In recent days, the administration has tempered its hostility, allowing Secretary of State Colin Powell to pursue diplomacy in Damascus. But Syria remains noncommittal on one key U.S. demand: ending support for Hezbollah, an Islamic militia in southern Lebanon that Washington regards as a terrorist group.
http://zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=3944
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