Word: saddamism
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...p.k.k.'s political wing, said. "Everything after that is negotiable." In 2004, after calling off its cease-fire, the group waged an escalating guerrilla war against Turkish security forces. It has bolstered its arsenal with plastic explosives and other munitions acquired from the Iraqi military after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Despite Turkish authorities' claims, the p.k.k. denies involvement in the bombings at the seaside towns of Antalya and Marmaris. Another Kurdish group, the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (t.a.k.), has claimed responsibility. Considered a p.k.k. offshoot, the t.a.k. boasted in a written statement that "we have promised to turn monstrous Turkey...
Moreover, the subsequent military onslaughts against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq seemed to reaffirm the irresistible extent of American hyperpower. Phrases like "full-spectrum dominance" and "shock and awe" entered the military parlance as the Pentagon struck back. The National Security Strategy of the United States, published in 2002, unabashedly asserted the right of the U.S. not merely to retaliate but also to act pre-emptively "against ... emerging threats before they are fully formed...
...should respond to the attacks by fundamentally changing the status quo in the Middle East originated with the so-called neoconservatives whom Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had gathered around him at the Pentagon. If Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney saw 9/11 as an opportunity to settle accounts with Saddam, the neocons had loftier ambitions. They saw a chance to achieve a political transformation of the Middle East. What nobler goal could there be for U.S. military might than a democratic revolution...
...arms. Far from abating, violence in Iraq increased over time. Part of the problem was the insufficiency of U.S. boots on the ground. General Eric Shinseki turned out to have been right that "something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers" would be needed to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq. Trying to do the job with around 135,000--roughly 1 American for every 210 Iraqis--exposed a part of the spectrum that the U.S. could not fully dominate: the Arab street. U.S. soldiers patrolling strife-torn cities could be killed or maimed by the simplest of improvised explosive devices...
...after the original invasion--even before the U.S. death toll in Iraq passed the thousand mark--support for the war had dropped below 50%. True, new evidence came to light of the dictator's crimes against his own people. True, opinion polls suggested that Iraqis overwhelmingly preferred democracy to Saddam. But U.S. voters did not see these as sufficient grounds for risking American lives. The Bush Administration's contentions that Saddam had links to al-Qaeda and possessed weapons of mass destruction proved groundless...