FROM THE PUBLISHER
Kaplan and Kristol argue that to understand the choice we face in dealing with Saddam, it is necessary to go beyond the details of his weapons of mass destruction, his violence against his own people and others, and his flouting of U.N. resolutions. They believe the choice is whether the twenty-first century will see a world of civilized norms that is congenial to America, or a world where dictators feel no constraints against developing terror weapons and no compunction about using them at home and abroad and in support of terrorism.

SYNOPSIS
Co-author Kristol (editor of The Weekly Standard) was intimately involved, along with current Bush administration figures Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, in pushing proposals to militarily attack Iraq and project American military power for a "New American Century" (seen by much of the world as an attempt to establish a globally- hegemonic American Empire). Here, working with fellow neoconservative Kaplan (editor of The New Republic) he presents the justification for that stance, including the idea that Saddam Hussein is the preeminent danger to world civilization. They criticize the policies of the Bush I and Clinton administrations as leading to a grave crisis from which only the full implementation of the Bush doctrine (which they helped formulate) of preemptively preventing the rise of regional powers can extricate the world.