SA #2 on "Letter to President Clinton in Iraq"

This entry looks at the letter which was published by the Project for the New American Century. The letter warns that current American policy toward Iraq is failing and urgent actions are required to avoid a soon to come devastation. It was signed by influential political figures such as Elliot Abrams who is a lawyer and a political analyst, and Richard L. Armitage who later served as the U.S Deputy Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005. The chief aim of this letter is to persuade President Clinton and his surroundings that may influence him on making decisions to address the committed plan for the U.S to disarm Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.

The PNAC's mission statement, the final goal is to promote American global leadership. The means to obtain global leadership is diverse, but by looking at the immediate historical context, this particular letter was written for a reason. Iraq and Saddam Hussein's regime and the debate of their possession of weapons of mass destruction were the most controversial and hottest topic which also was a danger and a concern to the world at that time. Therefore encouraging the U.S to take charge and coming up with drastic and determined actions to disarm Hussein seemed to be the most effective approach to promote American global leadership. In other words, the principal aim of this text is to convince Clinton, the individual with the most decision making powers to address and act toward a strategy that will remove Saddam's regime solely by the American power.

Kinneavy's principal of division was introduced in 1969. With the rapid technological advancements, mediums which written texts are presented have changed and increased in number. Internet is the biggest example. This letter's most essential and main targeted audience is the President of the U.S. This text seems to belong to the Decoder genre in Kinneavy's divisions, because it is trying to achieve a specific reaction from the audience, Clinton in this particular text. The encoder, the members of the PNAC are attempting to direct Clinton to lead the U.S by itself in solving the problem in Iraq, as the important step toward American global leadership. This would be the case if it was really a letter that only President Clinton was the reader. However, the fact that it is posted on a website open to everyone in the entire world with the most basic internet connection must indicate that the authors constructed the audience to assume that this letter was written for the President of America. There is information about the situation that anybody can read and obtain, which may influence them with their opinions about the matter as well. Hence the text fits within the decoder aspect of Kinneavy's division, but because the audience is too diverse, the authors cannot possibly expect and attempt to achieve certain reactions from all of them. There lies the limitation to this concept. This letter carries such different messages for politicians, for American citizens, and the members of the UN.