Our values, Iraq's freedom: why Democrats should support regime change in Iraq.

Is a commitment to a regime change in Iraq compatible with the core values of the Democratic Party?

A majority of Democrats in the House and Senate voted against giving President Bush the military power to compel Saddam Hussein to relinquish his weapons of mass destruction and to respect the human rights of his own people. This would suggest that it is not.

But an honest assessment of the Democratic Party's role in shaping foreign policy indicates that the robust internationalism inherent in a dedication to regime change in Iraq is indeed consistent with the Party's principles. Perhaps the best way of determining the core foreign policy values of the two great political parties in the United States is to look at how the Presidents they put in the White House have conducted themselves while in residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Let's review the record:

It was, after all, the Princeton professor who first articulated a commitment to democracy and self-determination as one of the fundamental pillars of American foreign policy; the Hyde Park squire who put the prestige of the United States behind the establishment of the United Nations as the best way of creating a more peaceful world; the man from Missouri who enunciated the Truman doctrine pledging the United States to resist tyranny wherever it raised its ugly head; the New England aristocrat who made nuclear non-proliferation one of his primary objectives; the Texas rancher who committed American forces to the fight for freedom from Central America to Southeast Asia; the peanut farmer from Georgia who made human rights the centerpiece of American foreign policy; and the good ol' boy from Arkansas who signed the legislation making regime change in Iraq the official policy of the United States.

If democracy and self-determination are to have any chance of becoming a reality in Iraq, the removal of the Mesopotamian megalomaniac and his Ba'athist bully boys from their position of power in Baghdad is clearly a necessary, if not sufficient, condition. Put Woodrow Wilson, therefore, on the side of regime change in Iraq.

If the United Nations is going to avoid the fate of the League of Nations and its tragic slide into irrelevance, the relevant U.N. resolutions calling for the elimination of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction will have to be truly implemented. It should be clear by now that the only way to secure the destruction of these demonic devices is through the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. Put Franklin Roosevelt, therefore, on the side of regime change in Iraq.

If Iraq, which has invaded both Iran and Kuwait in its unrelenting bid for regional hegemony, is going to be transformed into a force for peace rather than a platform for war, there is no viable alternative to removing the Tikriti tyrant from his position of power. Put Harry Truman, therefore, on the side of regime change in Iraq.