The Iraq War, 20 Years Later

John MuellerOn Thursday, March 16, we reach the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Saddam Hussein ’s Iraq under the George W. Bush administration. There will be an afternoon ofpanels on that day at Cato reflecting on the event.As the invasion loomed, there was quite a bit of protest both in the United States and around the globe, and a popular placard at some of the protests was one reading, “A village in Texas is missing its idiot.”In his impressive newbook,Confronting Saddam Hussein: George W. Bush and the Invasion of Iraq (Oxford University Press), historian Melvyn Leffler takes strong exception to that characterization. He argues, that, while “the invasion of Iraq turned into a tragedy, ” this was not, “as some accounts have it, because of an inattentive chief executive, easily manipulated by neoconservative advisers.” In fact, “Bush always was in charge of the administration’s Iraq policy, and he did not rush to war. Haunted by the catastrophe on 9/11, he grappled with u nprecedented threats, identified Iraq as a potential danger, developed a strategy of coercive diplomacy, and hoped Hussein would bow to American pressure. He went to warnotout of a fanciful idea to make Iraq democratic, but to rid it of its deadly weapons, its links to terrorists, and its ruthless, unpredictable tyrant. ”Leffler ’s argument about democracy promotion is sound. In fact, the democracy argument rose in significance, as Bruce Russetthas not...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs