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

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. 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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 CNN Inside Politics, CNN, 17 February 1998; and Not Saddam Hussein of Morning, 1 March 1998. and The Weekly Standard, 1 December 1997, and and “We the Brent Scowcroft, and Foreign Affairs W. Lippman, Says U.S. is Against Washington Post, 27 March 1997, and Steven Up to Iraq Hussein New York Times, 27 March 1997, A15. Scowcroft, “The Power of Washington Post, 1 March 1998, Against Iraq,” World Morning, 25 June 1998; Jim and in Iraqi Washington Post, 23 June 1998, and Christopher S. on Iraq but New New York Times, 25 June 1998, A10. Krauthammer, “The Response to Washington Post, 5 September 1996, A23. “No Washington Post, October 1996, John “U.S. to Pressure Iraq to on Washington Post, November 1997, “The War Against Saddam,” November 1997, A19; and and Paul “We the Way in Saddam,” Washington Post, 19 November 1997, “U.S. in for Struggle Over Iraqi Washington Post, 26 November 1997, and to End Iraq,” Chicago 26 November 1997, New York Times, 6 November 1997, and George We Saddam,” 1 December 1997, Saddam,” 12 May Sciolino, How to New York Times, December 2000, Iraqi on Washington Post, 17 November 1997, A1. 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Grow and Committee for and Security in the Gulf, to the 19 February 1998, November Committee on Foreign Relations, Saddam Hussein Hearings of the on Near Eastern and South Asian Cong., 2nd sess., 2 March 1998. for a New American to the and the 29 May 1998, 18 November American Leadership for the of (March 1998): R. “Iraq: America's Washington Post, 1 March 1998, on Iraq and U.S. of New York Times, 27 August 1998, A1. on 9 September 1998. National Security U.S. Policy on Iraq, Cong., 2nd sess., September 1998. An to a to a to Democracy in Iraq, Cong., 2nd sess., 29 September 1998. a to a to Democracy in Iraq,” Congressional October 1998): of War to Oust Saddam,” Washington Post, 20 October 1998, A1. 137 February 1998. or NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, PBS, 2 March 1998. Ideas as International no. 1 by Clinton,” Washington Post, November 1998, “The of American Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs no. 6 1998): J. Clinton, on the in Iraq,” Public Papers of the of the United William J. Clinton, 1998, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: Lee Myers, “In Iraq New York Times, August A1. Calls for of National Security Policy,” New York Times, 8 December and to 2 August 2000, America's 2000. April Foreign Relations Hearings for of Colin Cong., 1st sess., 17 January Foreign Relations United Policy Toward Iraq, Hearings of the Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Subcommittee, Cong., 1st sess., 1 March and Iraqi Air in in 6 New York Times, August 2001, A. Against Inside America's War on (New York: Press, 2004), and Suskind, The Price of am indebted to Stephen M. Saideman for this point. and Problem Policy Studies 21, no. 1 (March Bush at 1 June and Lobasz, “Fixing the Meaning of 9/11,” am indebted to Steven L. for this

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