The War Over Iraq : Saddam's Tyranny and America's Mission

as The Crisis With Iraq Continues, Americans Have Questions. Is War Really Necessary? What Can It Accomplish? What Broad Vision Of U.s. Foreign Policy Underlies The Determination To Remove Saddam Hussein? What Were The Failures Of The Last Couple Of Decades That Brought Us To A Showdown With A Dictator Developing Weapons Of Mass Destruction? What Is The Relationship Between War With Iraq And The Events Of 9-11? The Answers To These Questions Are Found In This Timely Book By Two Of America's Leading Foreign Policy Thinkers. Kristol And Kaplan Lay Out A Detailed Rationale For Action Against Iraq. But To Understand Why We Must Fight Saddam, The Authors Assert, It Is Necessary To Go Beyond The Details Of His Weapons Of Mass Destruction, His Past Genocidal Actions Against Iran And His Own People, And The U.n. Resolutions He Has Ignored. The Explanation Begins With How The Dominant Policy Ideas Of The Last Decade--clintonian Liberalism And Republican Realpolitik--led American Policymakers To Turn A Blind Eye To The Threat Iraq Has Posed For Well Over A Decade. As Kristol And Kaplan Make Clear, The War Over Iraq Is In Large Part A War Of Competing Ideas About America's Role In The World. The Authors Provide The First Comprehensive Explanation Of The Strategy Of Preemption Guiding The Bush Administration In Dealing With This Crisis. They Show That American Foreign Policy For The 21st Century Is Being Forged In The Crucible Of Our Response To Saddam. The War Over Iraq Will Presumably Be The End Of Saddam Hussein. But It Will Be The Beginning Of A New Era In American Foreign Policy. William Kristol And Lawrence Kaplan Are Indispensable Guides To The Era That Lies Ahead. publishers Weekly in 1972, Revel Shocked The World With His Best-selling Book, Without Marx Or Jesus, In Which He Defended America Against Global Denunciation. Thirty Years Later, Revel Is Back With The Same Purpose. His Latest Book, A Bestseller In France, Comes At A Crucial Time. It Seeks To Explain The Root Cause Of The World's And Particularly Europe's Obsession With Hating America. He Does Not Pretend That America Is Perfect. But He Argues That The Daily Denunciations Exceed The Bounds Of Reasonable Criticism. Furthermore, Revel Says, European Critics Are Quick To Point Fingers When They Should Be Looking In The Mirror. Rather Than Mock America's 2000 Presidential Election, He Notes, Europeans Should Have Been Examining Their Own Abysmally Run European Union. He Attributes Such Inconsistencies To Europeans' Desperate Desire To Project Our Faults Onto America So As To Absolve Ourselves. Revel Further Finds Fault With The Antiglobalization Movement. Though The Movement Claims To Oppose Inequality And Poverty In Underdeveloped Countries, Its True Anathema Is Liberal Capitalism, Whose Chief Representative Is The United States. The Barrage Of Attacks Will Make It Impossible For The United States To Confer With European Officials Or Take Any Criticism Seriously. It Is In Europe's Interest, Revel Says, To Put Aside Its Envy And Consider A More Constructive Relationship With The United States. . As A French Citizen, The Author Laments The Sorry State Of His Home Country; He Believes That Careful Consideration Of American Principles Will Strengthen Europe. Revel Writes With A Style At Once Informative And Incisive. He Possesses A Sarcastic Wit That Is Undoubtedly As Irritating To His Critics As It Is Endearing To His Supporters. (nov. 10) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information. Annotation Laying out a detailed rationale for action against Iraq, Kaplan and Kristol make clear that the controversy over it is largely a war of competing ideas about America's role in the world. They provide the first comprehensive explanation of the strategy of "preemption" guiding the Bush administration in dealing with this crisis, and show that American foreign policy for the 21st century is being forged in the crucible of our response to Saddam Hussein. The Iraq war will presumably be the end of Saddam, but also the beginning of a new era in American foreign policy. Kaplan and Kristol offer guidance for the path ahead Laying out a detailed rationale for action against Iraq, Kaplan and Kristol make clear that the controversy over it is largely a war of competing ideas about America’s role in the world. They provide the first comprehensive explanation of the strategy of “preemption” guiding the Bush administration in dealing with this crisis, and show that American foreign policy for the 21st century is being forged in the crucible of our response to Saddam Hussein. The Iraq war means the end of Saddam, and also the beginning of a new era in American foreign policy. Kaplan and Kristol offer guidance for the path ahead. Contents 6 Introduction 7 Tyranny at Home 15 Aggression Abroad 39 Weapons of Mass Destruction 62 Narrow Realism (Bush I) 76 Wishful Liberalism (Clinton) 102 A Distinctly American Internationalism (Bush II) 127 From Deterrence to Preemption 153 From Containment to Regime Change 185 From Ambivalence to Leadership 219 Notes 246 Examines the rationale for military action against Iraq, discussing Saddam Hussein's genocidal actions and his failure to disarm, and explains the Bush administration's strategy for eliminating the threat posed by Iraq. If all the adjectives that George W. Bush has used during his two years in office, none has elicited more howls of derision than the four-letter word "evil."