WASHINGTON: To foreign policy analysts, the most intriguing part of the Bush Doctrine isn’t the administration’s saber- rattling at Iraq.

Instead, the most interesting parts are Bush’s broader arguments that the threat to peace no longer comes from great- power conflict, but from smaller powers such as Iraq; that deterrence and containment cannot work against such countries; and that the long-term solution must include US promotion of democracy and other American values.

“It’s a Pax Americana, but Pax Americana in cooperation with other great powers,” said John Lewis Gaddis, a foreign policy scholar at Yale University.

Already being called the “Bush Doctrine,” the new policy — to be outlined formally in a report to Congress this fall — declares the United States ready to launch pre-emptive attacks on hostile countries that deploy nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, with Iraq the most likely target.

Equally important, Bush aides say his “National Security Strategy” report will range far beyond Iraq to chart a broad global role for the United States, including calls for more cooperation with Russia and China, more military aid to countries battling terrorists, and more economic aid to poor nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Most analysts agree that the new doctrine reflects a major shift in thinking for a president who came to office with only a few foreign policy ambitions — mainly to reduce US peacekeeping commitments abroad and deploy anti-missile defences at home.—Dawn/The Los Angeles Times News Service.