Fall 2002: White House Press Secretary: Overthrowing Hussein Will Begin a ‘Positive Domino Effect’ of Democracy throughout Middle East

In 2008, Scott McClellan, currently the deputy press secretary in the Bush administration, will describe the current belief in the White House that overthrowing Iraq’s Saddam Hussein will lead to the overall democratization of the Middle East. According to McClellan, once Hussein has been overthrown and democracy established, the White House believes “it would serve as an example to other freedom-seeking reformers in the Middle East.” McClellan will call this ideal a “positive domino effect” that would bring about transformative, democratic change in Iran and Afghanistan. Both Iran and Iraq, McClellan will write, have “a significant number of well-educated, forward-looking citizens,” and as for Afghanistan, that nation is “already on the verge of democracy.” An Iraqi democracy will, the argument goes, inspire the Iranian people “to rise up and change their country’s governance, and a free Iraq and Iran would remove two major threats to peace and stability in the Middle East—two parts of the ‘axis of evil’ Bush had highlighted in his January 2002 State of the Union address (see Mid-January 2003 and 9:01 pm January 28, 2003). And this, in turn, would dramatically reduce global tensions and enhance a key national security interest of the United States by ensuring the long-term stability of the massive oil reserves of the Middle East.” [McClellan, 2008, pp. 129]