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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (87362)	3/28/2003 6:52:09 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 281500

You are trying to "Dance with the Man," John. You forget, I am a "Dancing Master." And yes, my ex got pissed when I caught her trying to evade the question. -g-

To: LindyBill who wrote (87362)	3/28/2003 7:25:14 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Well, Bill, you think subject changing is good. Two different questions that could be answered: (1) did Woodrow Wilson advocate the imposition of democracy by force as a good? and (2) is it simply possible to do so? It's the latter you wish to talk about and the former I posed as the beginning of this conversation. So, let's do both conversations. On the first, I'm proposing the tentative proposition that Wilson did not advocate such, thus the term that neocons are now Wilsonians in their Iraqi policy is wrong. It is an observation that can be challenged as observation by someone who knows the Wilson literature. On the second, I would be willing to argue the proposition that the attempt to impose democracy by force will not work in Iraq and, more, that's unlikely to be the aim of the US government. Despite claims to the contrary. I think it far more likely that their aim is stability than democracy; that stability can be variously defined but is most likely to be operationally defined as enough order to permit most of the troops to come back and for the ones who remain to have some degree of safety; and that major attention will be given to the safety of the oil fields. I don't see much evidence, save for one speech, that the Bush administration has seriously bought into the democracy project save for spin purposes. Here, however, I agree with Ken Pollack. If the invasion is to be done and it is certainly being done, the only way the Bush administration weathers the anger of Arab public opinion and, for that matter, global public opinion, is to do nation building. But the immediate opposite comes into play as soon as that's said, which is that an occupation which is nation building will be viewed not as that but rather as empire building. This is where the Bush folk have left us.