Ending Tyranny: Bush’s Democracy Agenda

Abstract

In his February 26, 2003, address to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI)—less than a month before the Iraq War began—President Bush claimed a free Iraq would provide a “dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region,” thus setting the stage to move forward on the “road map to peace” between Israel and the Palestinians.¹ Critics viewed President Bush’s shift from the rhetoric of fear—with its focus on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction—to the rhetoric of freedom as a calculated effort to boost public support for his march toward war with Iraq. But after the “coalition of the willing” toppled the Hussein regime, President Bush’s vision of a democratic Middle East developed into a “forward strategy of freedom.”²