I never thought I’d be saying this, but I long to go back to 1990.

Yes, the days of retainers and moving up to middle school, along with the first crush on a girl, have all come flooding back to me. Why? I long to remember when the Bush in office was the elder Bush, not Bush v. 2.0.

I actually want to go back to the days of NKOTB, Zubaz and folded notes so intricate they took half a class just to figure out how to open. I want to go back to middle school, when you first had to go to gym class, and you realizedthat some of your classmates were more advanced than you were in puberty terms because they stunk, and you didn’t.

I want to go back to Bush 41 and the days of international diplomacy and compromise, a time when the United States didn’t openly ridicule its allies for not towing the line. A time when real work was done behind the scenes to assure that our actions were understood and accepted by the rest of the international community.

That time has come and gone. The neo-conservatives in charge of the foreign policy of the Bush administration have been lying in wait for over a decade. In a recent insightful article in Salon, Jake Tapper pointed out a group called Team B that issued intelligence reports during the ’80s and ’90s calling for, among other things, regime change in Iraq. Team B was a group of intelligence and foreign policy experts that disagreed with the first Bush administration (too soft) and the Clinton administration (too multilateral). Relegated to the bench by these administrations, Team B is finally having their day in the sun.

What is a neo-conservative, and how have they hijacked our foreign policy? Neo-conservatism is a brand of traditional conservatism with a twist (hence, the neo). Neo-conservatives are actively exporting American values overseas and are interventionist in foreign affairs. The more traditional conservative view is to leave foreign matters alone and keep American involvement overseas to a minimum.

Neo-conservatives believe in international institutions as far as they can throw them. That is to say, they will use groups such as the United Nations as long as they are useful. If the international institution proves to be too fickle, or obstructionist, it is jettisoned. The neo-cons would like international cooperation, but that shouldn’t hinder the U.S. from going alone.

The current situation in Iraq is not really about terrorism. There has been an extraordinary push by the Bush administration to make a connection between Al-Queda and Saddam that, unfortunately, far too many have swallowed. There is no connection. There is no proof. We won’t find any when we go to Iraq. We won’t hear of any if we capture Osama himself.

If Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz have been calling for Saddam’s head for over ten years, what is really driving the current push to get him? The fact is that neo-conservatives have a cold agenda that is easy to understand: Play the game, or get out.

It’s simple. Saddam is a thorn in the side of American foreign policy in the Middle East. He refuses to play by the rules. He won’t listen to our cajoling, or our threats; if you refuse to play the game, you will be removed as a player. This isn’t as simple as oil itself, it’s larger. If Iraq refuses to be a good partner in the international community, it must be changed.

There are two things the United States wants in the Middle East: open markets and democracies. This is a simple goal – for neo-conservatives. It makes sense to them. After all, it’s worked so well for us that there’s no reason to believe it won’t work just as well over there. A desire for open markets isn’t like the empire-building of old; it simply has the exact same effect.

The Bush administration gets to dress up this cause in any number of different robes. We are freeing the oppressed people of Iraq. We are promoting democracy in a region defined by monarchies and tribalism. We are bringing the ideas of human rights, free markets and freedom to a region that sorely needs it.

We tried with carrots, but now it’s time for the stick.

Let’s not fool ourselves. The Bush administration has one goal in mind in Middle East. It is to define the future of these countries in terms of structure both governmentally and in their markets. We will do it with a gun in hand and blinders on to the rest of the world.

This sort of naked aggression has not been implemented by the United States in awhile. Let’s hope the Bush administration is ready to reap the whirlwind.

Rob Deters ([email protected]) is a first year law student.