The essential role of democracy in the Bush Doctrine: the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan

Abstract

Everyone knows that democracy played a role in the Bush Doctrine. What not everyone knows is that this role was essential for the doctrine to be put into operation under which the Iraq invasion was prepared and launched. We argue moreover that, even if aggressive, the Bush doctrine is compatible with the American Liberal Tradition. To demonstrate these arguments we analyze the links between democracy, security, and the US national interests as expressed in the pillars of the American foreign policy since the end of Cold War. The consequential belief of the Bush Administration on the positive effect of exporting democracy by the use of force to Afghanistan and Iraq to fight terrorism will be remarked. It will be shown, however, that in the first years of the Bush Administration, among the justifications for the military interventions in the two countries, security reasons prevailed over democratic concerns, although the latter was significantly present since the early hours after September 11. It was only when it became clear that WMDs did not exist in Iraq that the exporting of democracy as the ultimate weapon to fight terrorism grew remarkably and prevailed over security reasons to invade those rogue states. The paper uses quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the speeches of President Bush and his Secretaries of State and Defense.

Mapping Terrorism and Policy: Reshaping U.S. Foreign Policy towards War on Terror 2001-2010

“…The instability within nations has gradually fuelled uprisings that could easily lead to terrorist development in many of these countries. Terrorism arose because of instability in Afghanistan (Santos & Teixeira, 2013). To fight it, the U.S. treated democracy as the best antidote to the WOT.…”

The Realism of the American Political System in Achieving International Stability: The Middle East as a Model (2003-2020)

“…The third Gulf War represented a translation of the new security strategy "the Bush Doctrine" (Santos & Teixeira, 2013). Bush Doctrine was considered an important shift in the American security doctrine and the way in dealing with international affairs related issues, where the trends of the Bill Clinton (deterrence and containment) were abandoned, and replaced by a strategy of pre-emptive strikes against terrorist organizations, and countries that support terrorism, enemy states, or even the countries that seek to possess power in a comprehensive sense.…”

Examining the Faith-Based Us Foreign Policy of G.W. Bush in Executing Middle Eastern Affairs

“…Therefore the promotion of democracy is for the good of mankind; 2-Democracies do not fight each other. Therefore, exporting means to promote regional or even global peace; 3-the promotion of democracy is linked to the security and the economic interests of the USA (Santos & Teixeira, 2013). Findings of the analysis are arranged in the following table.…”