BY J. SCOTT ORR 
STAR-LEDGER WASHINGTON BUREAU 

WASHINGTON -- The argument is so familiar that, by now, most Americans know it by heart. 

"The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. ... This means a willingness to undertake military action, as diplomacy is clearly failing." 

This particular enunciation of what has become Bush administration policy, however, did not come from the president during his months-long campaign to convince the public of the urgency of a U.S.-led invasion of Saddam Hussein's Iraq. 

Rather, the proposed policy was part of a letter written in January 1998 by a group of conservative foreign policy experts to President Bill Clinton, urging him to act against Saddam or face grave consequences. 

Five years later, the plan laid out by the Project for the New American Century has become a blueprint for Bush's war in Iraq. 

The authors of the plan are some of the same men who are now running the war at the White House. 

The letter's signatories included Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Pearle, the just-resigned chairman of the Defense Policy Board, which advises the Pentagon. A charter member of the think tank is Vice President Dick Cheney. 

For the neoconservatives and others aligned with New American Century, the toppling of Saddam's regime was to be only the beginning of a 21st-century American foreign policy based on military might. In its writings, the group also sees the potential for regime-changing confrontations in North Korea, Iran, Syria and elsewhere. 
 

ANOTHER APPROACH 

In 1998, well before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, brought Saddam firmly into the U.S. cross hairs, the Project for the New American Century was pushing for a more confrontational approach to foreign policy starting in Iraq. The plan got virtually no traction during the Clinton administration and was on the back burner in the Bush White House when the terrorists struck. 

"What was going on was we had our own views about the U.S. and Iraq. We saw Saddam as one of the most obvious points of contention that was not being addressed," said Gary Schmidt, executive director of the Project for the New American Century. 

Despite support for the plan from Cheney, Rumsfeld and others in the administration before Sept. 11, Schmidt said, the White House was basing its Iraq policy at the time on the "sanctions and beefed-up containment" favored by Secretary of State Colin Powell. 

"What happened is, Sept. 11 made our case more compelling," Schmidt said. And with such influential people in the White House backing the forced ouster of Saddam, the idea gained currency almost overnight. 

"These were all influential players in Washington even in 1998 when they were trying to pressure the Clinton administration," said Eric Leaver, project coordinator at the Institute for Policy Study, a liberal Washington think tank that opposes the war. 

"Sept. 11 allowed the president to go ahead with the plan. They just took it off the shelf and dusted it off and had it all right there. It was an ideologic plan driven by ideologues, and the events of Sept. 11 opened the door," he said. 

What scares people like Leaver the most is the possibility that the New American Century doctrine will continue to be influential as the White House crafts new foreign policy. That, war opponents say, could mean more global confrontation for the U.S. military. 

In January, New American Century strategists sent a letter to President Bush in which they warned that his proposed budget for the fiscal year that begins in October was woefully short on defense spending. It suggested an increase of as much as $100 billion to allow the U.S. to support "a military with global responsibilities." 
 

THE ROGUE STATES 

"Other rogue states remain a major problem," the letter said, naming the two nations that with Iraq make up President Bush's axis of evil: North Korea and Iran. The letter also noted that the U.S. war on terrorism has spread from the Middle East to Southeast Asia, and that China "is pursuing advanced military capabilities that can threaten its neighbors." 

"A multitude of threats ... call into question our ability now, and in the future, to defend adequately our interests and principles around the globe. Removing Saddam is but the first step toward ... carrying out your strategic vision for the Middle East," the letter said. 

Opponents of the U.S. interventionism find such talk chilling. 

"I think the notion that the U.S. can be the world's policeman, which is what this strategy essentially calls for, is absurd. I don't think the American public will accept the burden of that role," said Jim Lobe, an analyst with Foreign Policy in Focus, another liberal think tank. 

"This administration and the strategy that underlies it seeks unilateral dominance in which the U.S. decides for itself what its interests are and doesn't care about the interests of other countries," he said. 

Still, there is some doubt among foreign policy experts that victory in Iraq will lead to new conflict. 

"The good thing is that these sorts of ideas often times run into political reality," said Thomas Schwartz, a foreign policy expert and history professor at Vanderbilt University. 

"Out of this war, even if it is successful, will come a hesitancy to use force against these regimes. There will be a bit more skepticism. Success in Iraq will have its costs and that will embolden those who argue for more caution," he said. 

Schmidt, the New American Century executive director, agreed that the administration will not likely take on new military engagements immediately after the campaign in Iraq ends. 

"I expect that the administration, after it gets through dealing with Iraq, is going to want to hang the 'do not disturb' sign on the door for a while," he said. 
 

SUPPORT FOR CONTAINMENT 

Schmidt also stressed that the group does not advocate immediate military action as a means of dealing with every threat. At the moment, it supports containment in anticipation of internally driven regime changes in North Korea and Iran and sees Syria and some other Middle Eastern entities as reduced threats in the face of the U.S. attack against Iraq. 

"There's nothing like a show of power to push things pretty quickly in the Middle East," he said. 

The Project for the New American Century was founded in 1997 by William Kristol, editor of the "Weekly Standard" and a former chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle, and Robert Kagan, senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a State Department official during the Ronald Reagan administration. 

In its 1997 statement of principles, the group called for a return to "a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity." 

"We cannot safely avoid the responsibilities of global leadership or the costs that are associated with its exercise," said the statement, which was signed by Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Pearle, Quayle and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother. 

It laid out a new-era U.S. foreign policy based, like the Iraq war, on pre-emption. 

"The history of the 20th Century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge and to meet threats before they become dire," the statement said.