Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Origins of Regime Change: “Ideapolitik” on the Long Road to Baghdad, 1993–2000

2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 17; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09636410802098693

1556-1852

Russell A. Burgos,

International Relations and Foreign Policy

Abstract How was the ouster of Saddam Hussein defined as the solution to America's Iraq problem? Current scholarship on the U.S. invasion of Iraq tends to focus on the post-9/11 road to war, promoting models of policy capture, intelligence manipulation, threat-inflation, or rhetorical coercion of Bush administration opponents. In this essay, I trace the “Ideapolitik” of regime change in the 1990s and show that Bush's post-9/11 rhetoric was firmly embedded in a preexisting foreign policy consensus defining Saddam Hussein as the “problem” and his overthrow as its “solution.” Drawing upon recent research in international relations and public policy, I show how the idea of regime change prevailed in redefining American strategy for Iraq. While the September 11, 2001 attacks had important effects on the Bush administration's willingness to use force, the basic idea that ousting Saddam Hussein would solve the Iraq problem was already embedded in elite discourse. Saddam Hussein's ouster was not simply the result of idiosyncratic or nefarious decision-making processes within the Bush administration, but was instead the realization of a social choice made by U.S. foreign policy elites well before George W. Bush came to power. Notes 1James Fallows, “Blind Into Baghdad,” in Blind Into Baghdad: America's War in Iraq (New York: Vintage Books, 2006), 43; see also David Rose, “Neo-Culpa,” Vanity Fair (January 2007); John W. Davis, ed., Presidential Politics and the Road to the Second Iraq War: From Forty One to Forty Three (New York: Ashgate, 2006); Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War (New York: Crown Publishing, 2006); and J. Forrest Sharpe, ed., Neo-Conned! Again: Hypocrisy, Lawlessness, and the Rape of Iraq (New York: IHS Press, 2006). 2Ronald R. Krebs and Jennifer K. Lobasz, “Fixing the Meaning of 9/11: Hegemony, Coercion, and the Road to War in Iraq,” Security Studies 16, no. 3 (July-September 2007): 409–51. 3Alternate capture models posit capture by either (or both) of the oil industry and military-industrial complex or the pernicious influence of an “Israel lobby.” Sharpe, Neo-Conned! Again; John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, “The Israel Lobby,” London Review of Books 28, no. 6 (23 March 2006). 4Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin Group, 2006), 7. See also Ivo Daalder and James M. Lindsay, America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2003). 5Krebs and Lobasz, “Fixing the Meaning of 9/11” Michael J. Mazarr, “The Iraq War and Agenda Setting,” Foreign Policy Analysis 3, no. 1 (January 2007): 1-23; and Andrew Flibbert, “The Road to Baghdad: Ideas and Intellectuals in Explanations of the Iraq War,” Security Studies 15, no. 2 (April–June 2006): 310–52. 6Sheri Berman, “Ideas, Norms, and Culture in Political Analysis,” Comparative Politics 33, no. 2 (January 2001): 237. 7Joel Best, “Constructionism in Context,” in Images of Issues: Typifying Contemporary Social Problems, 2nd ed., ed. Joel Best (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1995), 337–54. 8Chaim Kaufmann, “Threat Inflation and the Failure of the Marketplace of Ideas: The Selling of the Iraq War,” International Security 29, no. 1 (Summer 2004): 5–48. 9Steven Brint, “Rethinking the Policy Influence of Experts: From General Characterizations to Analysis of Variation,” Sociological Forum 5, no. 3 (September 1990): 376. 10Jack Snyder, From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2000), 49; B. Dan Wood and Jeffrey S. Peake, “The Dynamics of Foreign Policy Agenda Setting,” American Political Science Review 92, no. 1 (March 1998): 173-84; and Zeev Maoz, “Framing the National Interest: The Manipulation of Foreign Policy Decisions in Group Settings,” World Politics 43, no. 1 (October 1990): 77–110. 11Jeffrey W. Legro, Rethinking the World: Great Power Strategies and International Order (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005). 12Mazarr, “The Iraq War and Agenda Setting” and John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policy (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1984). 13I am indebted to Stephen M. Saideman for this point. See Peter Feaver and Christopher Gelpi, Choosing Your Battles: American Civil-Military Relations and the Use of Force (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004). 14Dominc D. P. Johnson, Overconfidence and War: The Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 191–218. 15Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004). 16Legro, Rethinking the World; and David A. Rochefort and Roger W. Cobb, “Problem Definition: An Emerging Perspective,” in The Politics of Problem Definition: Shaping the Policy Agenda, ed. Rochefort and Cobb (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994), 1–31. 17Flibbert, “The Road to Baghdad,” 313. 18Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2nd ed. (Reading: Longman, 1999), 256; Miroslav Nincic, Democracy and Foreign Policy: The Fallacy of Political Realism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992). 19Deborah A. Stone, “Causal Stories and the Formation of Policy Agendas,” Political Science Quarterly 104, no. 2 (Summer 1989), 289. The term “Ideapolitik” is Legro's. See Rethinking the World, 22. 20Reuel Marc Gerecht, “Liberate Iraq: Is the Bush Administration Serious about Toppling Saddam Hussein?” The Weekly Standard, 14 May 2001, 23. 21Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Efforts to Overthrow Iraqi Leader Saddam Hussein, Hearings Before the Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Subcommittee, 106th Cong., 2nd sess., 28 June 2000. 22“Second Presidential Debate Between Gov. Bush and Vice President Gore,” New York Times, 12 October 2000, A22. 23Sarah E. Mendelson, Changing Course: Ideas, Politics, and the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998). 24Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 11-14; Ricks, Fiasco, chap. 1; and George M. Packer, The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq (New York: Farar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005), chap. 1–2. 25Isikoff and Corn, Hubris; and Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies, and the Mess in Iraq (New York: Penguin Group, 2006). 26John W. Davis, “The Ideology of War: The Neoconservatives and the Hijacking of U.S. Policy in Iraq,” in John W. Davis, ed., Presidential Politics and the Road to the Second Iraq War: From Forty One to Forty Three (New York: Ashgate, 2006), 59. 27Jon Western, “The War Over Iraq: Selling the War to the American Public,” Security Studies 14, no. 1 (January-February 2005): 106–39. 28Krebs and Lobasz, “Fixing the Meaning of 9/11,” 412. 29Kaufmann, “Threat Inflation.” 30Thomas S. Mowle, “Worldviews in Foreign Policy: Realism, Liberalism, and External Conflict,” Political Psychology 24, no. 3 (September 2003): 561-92; Deborah Welch Larson, “The Role of Belief Systems and Schemas in Foreign Policy Decision-Making,” Political Psychology 15, no. 1 (March 1994): 17-33; and Yuen Foong Khong, Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the Vietnam Decisions of 1965 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). 31Johnson, Overconfidence and War; and Stephen M. Skowronek, “Leadership by Definition: First Term Reflections on George W. Bush's Political Stance,” Perspectives on Politics 3, no. 4 (December 2005): 819. 32Krebs and Lobasz, “Fixing the Meaning of 9/11,” 412; and A. M. Rosenthal, “We Are Warned,” New York Times, 5 April 1990, A5 33Robert Jervis, “Understanding the Bush Doctrine,” Political Science Quarterly 118, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 365-88; Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003); Sam Robison, “George W. Bush and the Vulcans: Leader-Advisor Relations and America's Response to the 9/11 Attacks,” in Mark Schafer and Stephen G. Walker, eds., Beliefs and Leadership in World Politics: Methods and Applications of Operational Code Analysis (New York: Palgrave/MacMillan, 2006), 101-24; and Gary J. Dorrien, The Neoconservative Mind: Politics, Culture, and the War of Ideology (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993). 34Ron Suskind, The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of its Enemies Since 9/11 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006); Robison, “George W. Bush and the Vulcans” and Jay Nordlinger, “Star-in-Waiting: Meet George W.'s Foreign Policy Czarina, Condoleezza Rice,” National Review, 30 August 1999. 35Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 4th ed. (New York: Alfred A. Kopf, 1967), 202-3; Robert N. Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 94; Randall L. Schweller, “Domestic Structure and Preventive War: Are Democracies More Pacific?” World Politics 44, no. 2 (January 1992): 235-69; and Paul W. Schroeder, “World War I as Galloping Gertie: A Reply to Joachim Remak,” Journal of Modern History 44, no. 2 (September 1972): 319–45. 36Pitman B. Potter, “Preventive War Critically Considered,” American Journal of International Law 45, no. 1 (January 1951): 142–45. 37Reinhold Niebuhr, “A Protest Against a Dilemma's Two Horns,” World Politics 2, no. 3 (April 1950): 338–44. 38Jack S. Levy, “Declining Power and the Preventive Motivation for War,” World Politics 40, no. 1 (October 1987), 87. 39Robert Jervis, “The Compulsive Empire,” Foreign Policy 137 (July/August 2003), 84. 40Christopher Layne, “The Unipolar Illusion Revisited: The Coming End of the United States' Unipolar Moment,” International Security 31, no. 2 (Fall 2006): 7-41; and Steven Greenhouse, “U.S. Says Iraq Appears to Resume Pullback from Kuwait Border,” New York Times, 17 October 1994, A10. 41Robert C. Lieberman, “Ideas, Institutions, and Political Order: Explaining Political Change,” American Political Science Review 96, no. 4 (December 2002), 697; Tami Davis Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing, 1914-1945 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002); and Ted Hopf, The Social Construction of International Politics: Identities & Foreign Policies, Moscow, 1955 and 1999 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002). 42Lieberman, “Ideas, Institutions, and Political Order,” 699; and Judith Goldstein, Ideas, Interests, and American Trade Policy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993). 43Berman, “Ideas, Norms, and Culture,” 233. 44David Patrick Houghton, “Reinvigorating the Study of Foreign Policy Decision Making: Toward a Constructivist Approach,” Foreign Policy Analysis 3, no. 1 (January 2007): 24–45. 45Thomas M. Franck and Edward Weisband, Word Politics: Verbal Strategy Among the Superpowers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 117-8; and David A. Rochefort and Roger W. Cobb, “Problem Definition: An Emerging Perspective,” in David A. Rochefort and Roger W. Cobb, eds., The Politics of Problem Definition: Shaping the Policy Agenda (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994), 9. 46Franck and Weisband, Word Politics, 118. 47Mazarr, “The Iraq War and Agenda Setting.” 48Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1984), 16–17. 49Ibid., 16, 177, 147. 50Ibid., 176. 51Rochefort and Cobb, “Problem Definition: An Emerging Perspective,” 14. 52Mark K. McBeth, et. al., “The Intersection of Narrative Policy Analysis and Policy Change Theory,” The Policy Studies Journal 35, no. 1 (February 2007): 87–108. 53Legro, Rethinking the World. 54Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998); and G. John Ikenberry, “Creating Yesterday's New World Order: Keynesian ‘New Thinking’ and the Anglo-American Postwar Settlement,” in Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change, ed. Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), 57–86. 55Patrick J. Haney and Walt Vanderbusch, The Cuban Embargo: The Domestic Politics of an American Foreign Policy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005); and Ralph G. Carter and James M. Scott, “Taking the Lead: Congressional Foreign Policy Entrepreneurs in U.S. Foreign Policy,” Politics & Policy 32, no. 1 (March 2004): 34–70. 56James M. McCormick, Eugene R. Wittkopf, and David M. Danna, “Politics and Bipartisanship at the Water's Edge: A Note on Bush and Clinton,” Polity 30, no. 1 (Autumn 1997): 133–49. 57David R. Tarr, ed., Congress and the Nation, vol. X, 1997-2001 (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2002), 173. 58Marie T. Henehan, Foreign Policy and Congress: An International Relations Perspective (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), 29; and Thomas E. Mann, “Making Foreign Policy: President and Congress,” in A Question of Balance: The President, the Congress, and Foreign Policy, ed. Thomas E. Mann (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1990), 2–3. 59 Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 104th Cong., 1st sess., 1995, vol. LI (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Inc., 1996), 1-3; and Jonathan S. Morris, “Reexamining the Politics of Talk: Partisan Rhetoric in the 104th House,” Legislative Studies Quarterly 26, no. 1 (February 2001): 101–21. 60Tarr, Congress and the Nation, 173; and Terry L. Deibel, “Intraparty Factionalism on Key Foreign Policy Issues: Congress versus Clinton, 1995-2000,” in Divided Power: The Presidency, Congress, and the Formation of American Foreign Policy, ed. Donald R. Kelley (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2005), 66–7. 61P. Edward Haley, Strategies of Dominance: The Misdirection of U.S. Foreign Policy (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 106. 62Haley, Strategies of Dominance, 106–10. 63Henehan, Foreign Policy and Congress, 29. 64David A. Rochefort and Roger W. Cobb, “Problem Definition, Agenda Access, and Policy Choice,” Policy Studies Journal 21, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 56–71. 65Richard A. Posner, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002). 66Gary S. Becker, “A Theory of Competition Among Pressure Groups for Political Influence,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 98, no. 3 (August 1983): 371–400. 67Joshua Greenberg, “Opinion Discourse and Canadian Newspapers: The Case of the Chinese ‘Boat People,’ Canadian Journal of Communication 25, no. 4 (2000): 517–37. 68Joseph Gusfield, The Culture of Public Problems (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981). 69Becker, “A Theory of Competition,” 379. 70Rochefort and Cobb, “Problem Definition: An Emerging Perspective,” 24. 71Mendelson, Changing Course; and Rochefort and Cobb, “Problem Definition: An Emerging Perspective.” 72Haley, Strategies of Dominance, 57–59. 73George H. W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), 488. 74H. Norman Schwarzkopf with Peter Petre, It Doesn't Take a Hero (New York: Linda Grey Bantam, 1992), 497; Colin Powell with Joseph E. Persico, My American Journey (New York: Random House, 1995), 490; and James A. Baker III, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace, 1989-1992 (New York: G. Putnam and Sons, 1995), 438. 75Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, 489; and Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 437, 439, 441. 76Heritage Foundation Press Conference, 14 November 1990. 77Angelo Codevilla and Mancur Olson, “Get Rid of Saddam Hussein Now,” Wall Street Journal, 25 February 1991, A8; and Mancur Olson, “Can We Still Get Rid of Saddam?” Washington Post, 26 May 1991, D2. 78Richard Perle, “In the Gulf, the Danger of a Diplomatic Solution,” New York Times, 23 September 1990, D21. 79Richard N. Perle, “No Magnanimity Yet for Iraq,” Wall Street Journal, 28 February 1991, A12. 80Jim Hoagland, “Neither Moral Nor Smart,” Washington Post, 9 April 1991, A21; and “Too Cautious on Iraq,” Washington Post, 2 April 1991, A21. 81Charles Krauthammer, “Good Morning, Vietnam: The Syndrome Returns, Courtesy of George Bush,” Washington Post, 19 April 1991, A23; “Tiananmen II,” Washington Post, 7 April 1991, A19; “It's Time to Finish Saddam,” Washington Post, 29 March 1991, A21; and “It's Not Just Oil,” Washington Post, 17 August 1990, A27. 82Joshua Muravchik, “At Last, Pax Americana,” New York Times, 24 January 1991, A23. 83Albert Wohlstetter, “Iraq: Dictatorship is the Problem,” Washington Post, 24 April 1991, A21. 84G. John Ikenberry, “The End of the NeoConservative Moment,” Survival 46, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 7–22. 85Richard Perle, “Iraq: Saddam Unbound,” in Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Defense Policy, ed. Robert Kagan and William Kristol (New York: Encounter Books, 2000), 100–101, 111. 86A. M. Rosenthal, “Saddam and Gore,” New York Times, 28 July 1992, A19. 87Al Gore Jr., “Defeating Hussein, Once and For All,” New York Times, 26 September 1991, A27. 88Jim Hoagland, “Clinton's Flair for Synthesis,” Washington Post, 27 December 1992, A15. 89Jim Hoagland, “Crank Up to Bury Saddam,” Washington Post, 21 January 1993, A23; and William Safire, “Unfinished Business,” New York Times, 29 March 1993, A15. 90Richard N. Haass, “Containing Iraq Without War,” Washington Post, 20 February 1998, A23; Elaine Sciolino, “How Tough Questions and Shrewd Mediating Brought Iraqi Showdown to an End,” New York Times, 23 November 1997, A8; and Steven Lee Myers, “White House Acts to Deflect Criticism of its Iraq Policy,” New York Times, 18 September 1996, A3. 91Richard Perle, “No More Halfway Measures,” Washington Post, 8 February 1998, C1. 92Posner, Public Intellectuals; Becker, “A Theory of Competition.” 93The author and two undergraduate research assistants performed a qualitative content analysis using the LEXIS/NEXIS Major Papers database. The basic search algorithms paired the subjects Saddam and Iraq with the action words like oust, overthrow, get rid, undo, undermine, take out, assassinate, contain, surround, maintain, and box. The purpose was to assess whether, in context, a reasonably well-informed reader would conclude the editorial promoted containment, regime change, or neither. 94Marr, Modern History of Iraq, 292. 95Thomas W. Lippman, “In U.S., Calls Grow Louder for Hussein's Removal,” Washington Post, 5 February 1998, A1. 96Robert Kagan, “A Way to Oust Saddam,” The Weekly Standard, 28 September 1998, 14. 97 NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, PBS, 30 January 1998. 98“Should Saddam Hussein Be Removed?” CNN Worldview, CNN, 26 February 1998; “Reactions to the President's Speech,” CNN Inside Politics, CNN, 17 February 1998; and “If Not Saddam: Getting Saddam Hussein Out of Power,” CBS News Sunday Morning, CBS, 1 March 1998. 99Paul Wolfowitz and Zalmay Khalilzad, “Overthrow Him,” The Weekly Standard, 1 December 1997, 14; and Wolfowitz and Khalilzad, “We Must Lead the Way.” 100Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft, and Richard Murphy, “Differentiated Containment,” Foreign Affairs (May/June 1997). 101Thomas W. Lippman, “Albright Says U.S. is Adamant About Maintaining Sanctions Against Saddam's Iraq” Washington Post, 27 March 1997, A28; and Steven Erlanger, “Albright Will Warm Up to Iraq if Hussein Goes,” New York Times, 27 March 1997, A15. 102Brent Scowcroft, “The Power of Containment,” Washington Post, 1 March 1998, C7. 103“UN Sanctions Against Iraq,” ABC World News This Morning, 25 June 1998; Jim Hoagland and Vernon Loeb, “Tests Show Nerve Gas in Iraqi Warheads,” Washington Post, 23 June 1998, A1; and Christopher S. Wren, “UN Arms Inspector Firm on Iraq Nerve Gas but Accepts New Test,” New York Times, 25 June 1998, A10. 104Charles Krauthammer, “The Pinprick Response to Aggression,” Washington Post, 5 September 1996, A23. 105Henry Kissinger, “No Objective, No Will,” Washington Post, 16 October 1996, C7; John F. Harris, “U.S. Urging UN to Pressure Iraq to Yield on Arms,” Washington Post, 10 November 1997, A1; Jeff Jacoby, “The Unfinished War Against Saddam,” Boston Globe, 11 November 1997, A19; and Zalmay Khalilzad and Paul Wolfowitz, “We Must Lead the Way in Deposing Saddam,” Washington Post, 19 November 1997, C9. 106Bradley Graham, “U.S. Digs in for ‘Long Term’ Struggle Over Iraqi Arms,” Washington Post, 26 November 1997, A22; and Karin Cooper, “U.S., Allies Seek to End Pinpricks vs. Iraq,” Chicago Sun-Times, 26 November 1997, 1. 107Thomas Friedman, “Head Shot,” New York Times, 6 November 1997, A31; and George Stephanopoulos, “Why We Should Kill Saddam,” Newsweek, 1 December 1997, 34. 108“Punishing Saddam,” CBS News 60 Minutes, CBS, 12 May 1996. 109Elaine Sciolino, “He Knows How to Torment Presidents: Who's Next?” New York Times, 10 December 2000, 5. 110John F. Harris, “Cohen Cites Iraqi Ability on Weapons,” Washington Post, 17 November 1997, A1. 111“The Iraq Situation,” ABC This Week, ABC., 16 November 1997; Maureen Down, “Anthrax, Smanthrax,” New York Times, 19 November 1997. 112“Larry King Live,” CNN, 25 November 1997. 113William Safire, “Diddled Again,” New York Times, 16 November 1998, A21. 114“Letter to President Clinton,” Project for the New American Century, 28 January 1998, http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm, accessed 18 November 2006. 115 A Concurrent Resolution Condemning Iraq's Threat to International Peace and Stability, S Res. 71, 105th Cong., 2nd sess., 28 January 1998. 116William Kristol and Robert Kagan, “Bombing Iraq Isn't Enough,” New York Times, 30 January 1998, A17. 117Robert S. Greenberger, “Clinton, Moving to Calm Capitol Hill, Says U.S. Doesn't Seek to Oust Saddam,” Wall Street Journal, 6 February 1998, A4. 118“U.S. Prepares for Military Action Against Iraq,” CNN Crossfire, CNN, 10 February 1998. 119Lippman, “Calls Grow Louder” and Fred Hiatt, “And a Crisis in Iraq,” Washington Post, 25 January 1998, C7. 120Robert Kagan, “Saddam's Impending Victory,” The Weekly Standard, 2 February 1998, 22. 121“Senator John McCain on the Possibility of Ousting Saddam Hussein,” CNN Worldview, CNN, 5 February 1998. 122 The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, PBS, 16 November 1998. 123 World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, ABC, 17 November 1998. 124CBS News/New York Times poll, 19-21 February 1998; Gallup/CNN/USA Today poll, 13-15 November 1998. 125Lippmann, “Calls Grow Louder” and Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf, “Open Letter to the President,” 19 February 1998, http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org, accessed 16 November 2006. 126Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Can Saddam Hussein be Overthrown? Hearings of the Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, 105th Cong., 2nd sess., 2 March 1998. 127Project for a New American Century, “Letter to the Honorable Newt Gingrich and the Honorable Trent Lott,” 29 May 1998, http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqletter1998.htm, accessed 18 November 2006. 128Madeleine Albright, “Supporting American Leadership for the 21st Century,” Department of State Bulletin (March 1998): 5. 129Samuel R. Berger, “Iraq: Securing America's Interests,” Washington Post, 1 March 1998, C7. 130Judith Miller, “American Inspector on Iraq Quits, Accusing UN and U.S. of Cave-in,” New York Times, 27 August 1998, A1. 131“Warning on A-arms,” Agence France-Presse, 9 September 1998. 132House National Security Committee, U.S. Policy Options on Iraq, 105th Cong., 2nd sess., 16 September 1998. 133 An Act to Establish a Program to Support a Transition to Democracy in Iraq, HR 4655, 105th Cong., 2nd sess., 29 September 1998. 134Senator Trent Lott, “Establishing a Program to Support a Transition to Democracy in Iraq,” Congressional Record 144 (7 October 1998): 139. 135Vernon Loeb, “Congress Stokes Visions of War to Oust Saddam,” Washington Post, 20 October 1998, A1. 136Loeb, “Congress Stokes Visions.” 137 ABC This Week, ABC, 22 February 1998. 138“Contain or Remove?” NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, PBS, 2 March 1998. 139Craig Parsons, “Showing Ideas as Causes,” International Organization 56, no. 1 (Winter 2002): 47–84. 140Vernon Loeb, “Saddam's Foes Heartened by Clinton,” Washington Post, 16 November 1998, A17. 141Madeleine Albright, “The Testing of American Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs 77, no. 6 (November/December 1998): 50. 142William J. Clinton, “Remarks on the Situation in Iraq,” Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, William J. Clinton, 1998, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office): 2,037. 143Steven Lee Myers, “In Intense, But Little Noticed, Fight, Allies Have Bombed Iraq All Year,” New York Times, 13 August 1999, A1. 144Alison Mitchell, “McCain Calls for Overhaul of National Security Policy,” New York Times, 8 December 1999, A20; and Richard Wolfe, “Bush Plans to Undermine ‘Rogue’ States,” Financial Times (London), 2 August 2000, 10. 145“Renewing America's Purpose. Together,” Republican Party Platform, 2000. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/showplatforms.php?platindex = R2000, accessed 11 April 2007. 146Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Confirmation Hearings for Secretary of State-Designate Colin Powell, 107th Cong., 1st sess., 17 January 2001. 147Senate Foreign Relations Committee, United States Policy Toward Iraq, Hearings of the Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Subcommittee, 107th Cong., 1st sess., 1 March 2001; and Jane Perlez, “Allies Bomb Iraqi Air Defenses in Biggest Attack in 6 Months,” New York Times, 11 August 2001, A6. 148Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror (New York: Free Press, 2004), 7-9; and Suskind, The Price of Loyalty. 149I am indebted to Stephen M. Saideman for this point. 150David Dery, “Agenda Setting and Problem Definition,” Policy Studies 21, no. 1 (March 2000): 40. 151“President Bush Delivers Graduation Speech at West Point,” 1 June 2002, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020601-3.html. 152Krebs and Lobasz, “Fixing the Meaning of 9/11,” 449. 153I am indebted to Steven L. Spiegel for this insight.