-Caveat Lector- http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/14/1047583702494.html Print this article | Close this window Democracy domino plan won't work: secret report By Greg Miller in Washington March 15 2003
A classified United States State Department report expresses deep scepticism that installing a new regime in Iraq will foster the spread of democracy in the Middle East - a claim President George Bush has made in trying to build support for a war - according to intelligence officials. The report exposes significant divisions within the Bush Administration over the so-called democratic domino theory. The report, which has been distributed to a small group of government officials but not publicly disclosed, says daunting economic and social problems are likely to undermine basic stability in the region for years, let alone prospects for democratic reform. Even if some version of democracy took root - which the report casts as unlikely - anti-American sentiment is so pervasive, it says, that elections in the short term could lead to the rise of Islamic-controlled governments hostile to the US. "Liberal democracy would be difficult to achieve," says one passage of the report, according to an intelligence official. "Electoral democracy, were it to emerge, could well be subject to exploitation by anti-American elements." The thrust of the document, the official said, "is that this idea that you're going to transform the Middle East and fundamentally alter its trajectory is not credible". Even the document's title - "Iraq, the Middle East and Change: No Dominoes" - appears to dismiss the Administration argument. The report was produced by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the in-house analytical arm. It is dated February 26, officials said, the day Mr Bush told the American Enterprise Institute in Washington: "A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region." But the argument has been pushed hardest by a group of advisers who have been leading proponents of going to war with Iraq, among them Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Defence Secretary, and Richard Perle, the chairman of the Defense Policy Board. Dr Wolfowitz has said Iraq could be "the first Arab democracy" and that even modest democratic progress in Iraq would "cast a very large shadow, starting with Syria and Iran but across the whole Arab world". Mr Perle has said that a reformed Iraq "has the potential to transform the thinking of people around the world about the potential for democracy, even in Arab countries where people have been disparaging of their potential". The domino theory also is used by the Administration as an argument to critics in US Congress who have expressed concern that invading Iraq will inflame the Muslim world and fuel terrorist activity against the US. But the theory is disputed by many Middle East experts and is viewed with scepticism by analysts at the CIA and State Department, intelligence officials said. Critics say that even establishing a democratic government in Iraq will be extremely difficult. Iraq is made up of ethnic groups deeply hostile to one another. Ever since its inception in 1932, the country has known little but bloody coups and brutal dictators. "We'll be lucky to have strong central governments [in the Middle East], let alone democracy," one official said. The official stressed that no one in intelligence or diplomatic circles opposed the idea of trying to install a democratic government in Iraq. "But to sell [the war] on the basis that this is going to cause 1000 flowers to bloom is naive," the official said. Los Angeles Times This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/14/1047583702494.html Forwarded for your information. 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