The coming battles pitting the U.S. and fundamentalist Islam

I freely admit that I’m no expert on foreign affairs, but over the last year or so I feel like I’ve been able to get a sense of Rumsfeld’s neo-con philosophy and how it applies to the use of military force. Yet, I’ve never really grasped the meta-goals the agenda hoped to achieve. It didn’t help that President Bush would so frequently change his mind when publicly explaining the need for a war with Iraq. Apparently he didn’t grasp the big picture either.

Bush did touch on a broader agenda in late February, when he delivered a speech on the future of Iraq and the Middle East. The president hinted that the invasion was not simply about disarming Hussein and/or riding Iraq of suspected weapons of mass destruction. He alluded to grand schemes involving democracy in the region that could blossom as a result of war.

“The world has a clear interest in the spread of democratic values, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder,” Bush said. “They encourage the peaceful pursuit of a better life. And there are hopeful signs of a desire for freedom in the Middle East…. A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region.”

This was really just a hint of his administration’s more expansive notions about how the United States can and should transform the entire Middle East. Let’s put it this way: a war with Iraq isn’t the culmination of the neo-con plan, it’s the beginning.

Josh Marshall, editor of Talking Points Memo, has written an incredibly important article for the April issue of the Washington Monthly. I know I occasionally describe pieces as “must-read” articles, but this one is essential. If you want to understand how and why the administration plans to expand American interests throughout the Middle East, you need to read this article.

As Marshall explains, for the neo-conservatives responsible for guiding Bush’s foreign policy, “invasion of Iraq was not merely, or even primarily, about getting rid of Saddam Hussein. Nor was it really about weapons of mass destruction, though their elimination was an important benefit. Rather, the administration sees the invasion as only the first move in a wider effort to reorder the power structure of the entire Middle East…. In short, the administration is trying to roll the table — to use U.S. military force, or the threat of it, to reform or topple virtually every regime in the region, from foes like Syria to friends like Egypt, on the theory that it is the undemocratic nature of these regimes that ultimately breeds terrorism.”

Marshall’s thesis is convincing to the point of being scary. In fact, we’re already seeing the administration take other steps that help reinforce the idea that Bush’s two wars in the Middle East (Afghanistan and Iraq) won’t be his last.

Just within the last week, Powell and Rumsfeld have separately offered strong warnings to Syria about its efforts to assist Saddam Hussein and to Iran about the country’s aid to terrorist organizations. In fact, when Rumsfeld was asked during a media briefing late last week whether the U.S. was threatening to use force against Syria, Rumsfeld hedged his answer, concluding only that Syria’s pro-Iraq activities “vastly complicates our situation.”

For his part, Powell had some veiled warnings for Syria and Iran as well. In a speech over the weekend, Powell urged Syria to discontinue “direct support for terrorist groups and the dying regime of Saddam Hussein.” He went on to add, “It is now time that the entire community step up and insist that Iran end its support for terrorists.”

The Washington Post summarized the administration’s warnings, concluding, “The more aggressive language Powell and Rumsfeld used suggests a greater determination by the administration to play a role in the Middle East beyond Iraq, whose government Bush has pledged to remove by force.”

Even our one remaining ally, England, has considered the administration’s ambitions for the Middle East and reported back with a simple message: The U.K. will help with Iraq, but not the entire region. Just yesterday, England’s foreign secretary, Jack Straw, said his country would have nothing whatever” to do with military action against Syria or Iran.

Mickey Kaus at Slate went so far as to question whether it is the administration’s neo-con fantasies that have led to limited troop deployment in Iraq.

“As I’ve been reading these reports, I’ve been scratching my head and asking myself, ‘Why would Rumsfeld do this?'” Kaus wrote last week. “Presumably he doesn’t like to take chances with American lives…. Sure, Rumsfeld wants to prove that his theories about lighter, more maneuverable high-tech forces are right and the Army’s plodding theories about ‘boots on the ground’ are wrong. But why does he want to prove these theories so badly? It can’t just be intellectual vanity, or the desire to win an internal Pentagon budget battle. Again, those aren’t worth risking lives for.

“Then, reading Marshall’s Washington Monthly piece on the military side of the grand neocon strategy, it hit me. Of course! If ‘regime change’ in Iraq were the only goal, there’d be no reason not to provide plenty of soldiers to do the job, with an ample margin of safety. But regime change in Iraq isn’t the only goal. Rather, neocons in the Bush administration see the Iraq campaign as the opening move in a series of potential power plays that might involve at least credibly threatening military action against Syria, Korea, Iran, and maybe even Saudi Arabia…. If we can take Iraq only with a huge, heavy force…we can’t very credibly claim that we can take on (or take over) all these other countries at the same time, or even in rapid succession, can we? But if we can topple a heavily-defended government in Iraq with a light, quick non-Powellesque force — using but a small portion of our strength — then taking on multiple targets suddenly becomes a real possibility, and a real threat to regimes in Tehran, Damascus, and Pyongyang.”

As Kaus noted, this is also starting to occur to others as well. A week ago, Jonathan Freedland, a columnist for England’s Guardian newspaper, reported that winning in Iraq with a smaller fighting force is an intentional gamble to try and support the neo-con strategy and make it easier to launch additional invasions in the near future.

“Why would a hawk like Rumsfeld prefer less to more?” Freedland asked rhetorically. “My Washington source offers an astonishing explanation: ‘So they can do it again.’ The logic is simple. Rumsfeld and co know that amassing an army of quarter of a million is a once-a-decade affair: 1991 and 2003. But if they can prove that victory is possible with a lighter, more nimble force, assembled rapidly — then why not repeat the trick? ‘This is just the beginning,’ an administration official told the New York Times this week. ‘I would not rule out the same sequence of events for Iran and North Korea as for Iraq.'”

Go read Marshall’s article. At a minimum, you won’t be surprised if the administration starts a p.r. campaign for new battles in the Middle East.