Overview
Regime Change...It's the latest catchphrase in the worldwide debate on American foreign policy, but it begs the questions: What exactly is a regime? And why should we want to change one?Political scientist Will Morrisey provides a citizen's guide to regime change, drawing from political history to clarify the underlying issues all of us now face in the war on terror.
Synopsis
Characterizing it as the necessary component of maintaining a commercial republic against hostile forces, Morrisey (political science, Hillsdale College), offers a primer on the US strategy of "regime change." He argues that it has always been part of American geopolitical behavior whenever it was faced with regimes that were hostile to commercial republicanism (e.g. the Nazis and the Communists). Islamism, he claims, is a similar force and thus a candidate for a strategy of regime change which encourages the growth of commercial republicanism in place of hostile forces. After the chapter on Islamism, he moves onto discussion of American strategy towards the Middle East, implicitly supporting the "regime change" efforts in Iraq (even though Saddam Hussein was hardly an Islamist). Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR