Thomas,

>In 1954 President Dwight D. Eisenhower used the term “Domino Theory”. Basically, the theory was that if one country falls to communism then all surrounding countries would also succumb. Our job was to prevent such an occurrence and led to our activity in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
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>Today we have taken a proactive (love that term) position and I would like to refer to this as the “Mushroom Theory”. We involve ourselves in Afghanistan and Iraq, which adjoin each other. Iran and Arab nations are connected to each other. The ever-growing Mushroom Farm that is being created by the United States is spreading.
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>This is like a reverse “Domino Theory”. That is why it is proactive – stop terrorism and bring democracy to the middle east.

I think the difficulty is that the average arab does not want to be in a democracy... You can't push for something the people do not want. A client told me today: It is better to have a strong and good dictatorship than a terrible democracy. He might be right...

Walter,