The use of military force to promote human rights
2006
Among the major, stated goals of the military action in Iraq has been the
US administration’s desire to replace the Saddam Hussein dictatorship
with a regime that would serve as a model for human rights and democracy in the Middle East. Thought controversial by many because it may
represent a bad precedent, as well as a sea change in American foreign
policy, the use of force for these purposes is really not that unusual in a
broad historical context. Throughout history, states have frequently used
military force to impose political systems upon other societies. Owen
(2002: 375) chronicled 198 such cases that have occurred since 1555. And
like the current case, most such efforts have involved the forceful imposition of a regime by a powerful country on a weaker target state. And in
most of these the powerful state has sought to impose on the target
country a set of political institutions that more closely resembles its own.
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