President Bush’s Nation-Building

In a speech to the American Enterprise Institute, President Bush announced plans for rebuilding Iraq in the wake of a war against Saddam Hussein. The plan would likely require hundreds of thousands of troops and years of occupation, not unlike the occupation of Japan and Germany after the Second World War. Turning Iraq into a democratic and peaceful nation would serve as a model for other nations in the region, Bush argued, and would ultimately lead to a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This editorial in The New York Times, however, argues that the plan is vague and the links between a peaceful Iraq and a peaceful Israel and Palestine are tenuous at best. –YaleGlobal