alternatehistory.com

Yes obviously this one is going to get political faster than the Flash on speed, but it's Boxing Day and we might as well hope for a late Christmas miracle and some reasoned discussion.

Anyway, so: the neoconservative doctrine that American military power should be used to topple repressive regimes, especially those that have it in for the US, and replace them with democracies out of the arguable belief that democracy results in stability, economic prosperity, and the rather less plausible amiability towards the USA.

Enacted in OTL vs Afghanistan and Iraq, the latter being a purer case, with a degree of success approximately equivalent to the Titanic's maiden voyage. So, the challenge: how can we get a case which is at least moderately successful?

I'm going to list some examples of what went wrong with the OTL cases, which can obviously be argued, but I think are broadly correct:

1) 9/11. Did give 'licence' for US power to be used, at least against Afghanistan, but fogged the issue with the idea that all such operations should be aimed at stopping terrorism, and Iraq obviously increased it instead.

2) Hypocrisy vis-a-vis US support of oppressive regimes such as the Saudi Arabian kingdom and Musharraf in Pakistan. The latter can probably be avoided if 9/11 does not happen and Afghanistan is not a target. The former is more problematic.

3) Historical grudge. Whether there is any truth to it or not, it was easy to make the accusation that Bush Vol. 2 wanted to attack Saddam Hussein due to his father's involvement in the first Gulf War (or the second, if you're German) and this therefore coloured the whole affair with an unpleasant level of emotional involvement. There is also the argument that Iraq's standard of living had declined partly because of American sanctions in the first place. Could perhaps have been avoided if a regime change operation had been targeted at a state historically less connected to the US, e.g. Zimbabwe with Robert Mugabe, or one whose historical relationship with the US was more friendly, such as Liberia with Charles Taylor.

4) Flimsy rationalisations, i.e. the mythical weapons of mass destruction; while it was plausible that these might exist, it was not plausible that Iraq posed a serious threat to the USA, even in the form of supplying such weapons to terrorists. Because the US would be foolish to try and attempt a regime change operation against a state that actually was a threat to the US (as that would provoke WW3), it would be better to simply eliminate this altogether. The rationalisations came about in the first place because the simple idea that regime change itself was the be-all and end-all of the conflict was unpopular, particularly when it came to risking troops' lives. Could at least be ameliorated if the target was a literal failed state rather than a simple dictatorship, so actual fighting against an organised army would be at a minimum compared to peacekeeping.

5) Divided western alliance and other democracies. Ideally this kind of operation would only take place in a case where all democracies, or at least all of NATO, approves. Cases with humanitarian motives such as Sudan (because of Darfur) would be the most likely to achieve this.

So, with a POD after the election of George Bush in 2000, is it possible to reach a situation where an execution of neocon doctrine in regime change has been performed by 2008 and most of the world's democratic governments (if perhaps not their voters) approve?
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