The United States and Persian Gulf Security: The Foundations of the War on Terror

Because democratization would combat the root causes of terrorism, nothing less than a complete reordering of the political environment of the Middle East could provide for regional stability in the long term, though in the short term insecurity and instability are likely as transitions to democracy...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of Middle East studies 2010, Vol.42 (1), p.172-174
Main Author: Dowdy, William L.
Format: Review
Language:English
Subjects:
Balance of power
Bush, George
Bush, George W
Clinton, Bill
Cold War
Democracy
Democratization
Extremism
Foreign policy
Geopolitics
Hussein, Saddam
International relations
Islam
Islamism
Middle East
National security
Persian language
Politics
Presidents
Regional security
Terrorism
Third-party intervention
U.S.A
War
War on terror
Weapons of mass destruction
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Summary:Because democratization would combat the root causes of terrorism, nothing less than a complete reordering of the political environment of the Middle East could provide for regional stability in the long term, though in the short term insecurity and instability are likely as transitions to democracy occur. Even many of President Bush's detractors admit that there was a consensus among Western intelligence services that between 1998 (when U.N. inspectors were expelled from Iraq) and 2002 (when inspectors were readmitted) there was a strong likelihood and circumstantial evidence, including Saddam's own machinations, that Saddam had reconstituted his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs and stockpiled nonconventional weapons (p. 175). [...]Wright implies that the most important Bush consideration in going to war with Iraq was not the putative WMD threat but the new Gulf strategy to defeat Islamic extremists by first democratizing Iraq: "the grand strategic premise of the United States was to promote democracy and liberalism as a means of countering extremist political Islam and terrorism . . . this was a key strategic objective which was arguably of more importance than the need to act preventatively against Iraq" (p. 178). [...]Wright's central thesis regarding a "new definition of Gulf security" strikes this reviewer as overblown.
ISSN:0020-7438
1471-6380
DOI:10.1017/S0020743809990742