Iraq and the evolution of democratisation policy in U.S. Neo-conservatism

Abstract

This thesis focus is to show the centrality of Iraq in the conduct of neoconservative democratisation policy from 1980 up to the 2003 Iraq War. Neoconservatives steadily supported democracy promotion thinking and this goes hand in hand with their calls to its spreading to Iraq. Actually, US democratisation policy in Iraq has gone through phases depending on the neoconservative position to the principle. During immediate post-Cold War period, differences among neoconservatives over the perspective emerged along generational lines and this led to skepticism of the principle efficacy in general, and in Iraq in particular. During the 1990s, neoconservatives continued their discussions of democracy promotion that centered around toppling Saddam’s regime and it was at that time that they developed prescriptions that would effectively be adopted for US foreign relations. Following the attacks of September 11 2001, the Bush administration officially announced an anti-terrorism grand strategy of armed democratisation in Iraq that was primarily planned by neoconservatives. In their support of US democratisation policy between the Gulf War and the 2003 Iraq War, neoconservatives showed different theoretical orientations from one that was sympathetic to realist thinking in the First Iraq War; to one much closer to liberal internationalist thought that was concerned with forcible regime change in Iraq in 2003.