Democracy a tool in neo-con hands by Jim Lobe

In 1998, when the neo-cons and Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi were steamrolling the Iraq Liberation Act through Congress, its supporters, such as the neo-con-dominated Project for the New American Century (PNAC), focused entirely on the military threat posed by a rearmed Saddam. Even in the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001, when the PNAC warned that the failure to oust Saddam would constitute a "decisive surrender" to international terrorism, the democracy question simply was nowhere on the agenda . . . To the increasingly Likudist mainstream of the movement - such people as Perle, Feith, Daniel Pipes, Norman Podhoretz and Michael Ledeen - however, it must sound like a great way to rally public opinion behind a war to shift the balance of power in the Middle East once and for all.