Could regime change in Iraq promote the spread of democracy in the Middle East?

"What efforts the Bush administration has made to forge regional and international cooperation have centered on democratization and counterterrorism. Both campaigns have considerable merit and potentially broad appeal; regimes in the region fear terrorism, and their people desire more democracy.

Unfortunately, both projects have been irredeemably compromised in the eyes of Arab constituencies because the United States has chosen occupied Arab lands on which to test them. Whatever the logic of trying to sow democracy in Palestine and Iraq first, the United States' attempts to do so have largely undermined its broader efforts.

Until Washington's democratization campaign can be purged of its association with preemtion and occupation, it will have little resonance in the region."

"We will not be judged by how we go to war, we will not be judged by how we fight this war; we will be judged by what happens after this war and by the way we deal with Iraq in the region once the war is over.

The president as yet has provided absolutely no indication or leadership on this issue. The most that he has done is make reference to words like democratization, which has become a four-letter word in the region, a synonym for imperialism, for potentially seizing control of oil, for going on from Iraq to other countries and for dictating the political future of the region."

"A classified State Department report expresses doubt that installing a new regime in Iraq will foster the spread of democracy in the Middle East, a claim President Bush has made in trying to build support for a war, according to intelligence officials familiar with the document.

The report exposes significant divisions within the Bush administration over the so-called democratic domino theory, one of the arguments that underpins the case for invading Iraq.

'Liberal democracy would be difficult to achieve,' says one passage of the report, according to an intelligence official who agreed to read portions of it to The Times.

'Electoral democracy, were it to emerge, could well be subject to exploitation by anti-American elements.'

The thrust of the document, the source said, 'is that this idea that you're going to transform the Middle East and fundamentally alter its trajectory is not credible.'"