Should The United States Benefit International Trade: Harmful Or Helpful?

Saddam Hussein has been regarded for centuries as a lethal dictator that led Iraq into the despair and poverty we see today. However, despite his dictatorial methods of leading his country, Hussein accomplished some astonishing heights for his beloved country; heights that were destroyed by the American invasion in 2001. Now, it seems that the question on everyone’s lips is; “Was Iraq better off before or after the American invasion?” and it seems that many Iraqi citizens are more inclined to believe that their country was far more proficient under the rule of Saddam Hussein. Moreover, many believe that the political and economic situation in Iraq today is far more chaotic and unequal under the rule of American forces. Yet, despite Saddam Hussein’s

In 2003, President George Walker Bush and his administration sent the United States military to war in Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s ruler and dictator, who murdered over 600,000 innocent people, and “...used chemical weapons to remove Kurds from their villages in northern Iraq…” (Rosenberg 2). According to the Department of Defense’s website, the war removed Saddam Hussein from power, ending an era when “Iraqis had fewer rights than when its representatives signed the Human Rights Declaration in 1948” (1). American blood, money, and honor was spent in what was allegedly a personal war and perhaps a fight to gain oil and natural resources, but only history may reveal the truth. Although the Iraq War removed tyrant Saddam Hussein from power, the failures of the war dwarf the successes.

When the United States seized control over Iraq, many Iraqi citizens were left without a job. As a result of this widespread unemployment, recruitment for Muslim extremist groups thrived. Lt. General Michael Flynn, a key figure of the War, has admitted “As brutal as Saddam Hussein was, it was a mistake to just eliminate him.” Flynn went on to say. “The same is true for Moammar Gadhafi and for Libya, which is now a failed state. The historic lesson is that it was a strategic failure to go into Iraq. History will not be and should not be kind with that

Recently, and especially since the 1990s, a popular conception of the world is that the age of empires and superpowers is waning, rapidly being replaced by a kind of global community made up of interdependent states and deeply connected through economics and technology. In this view, the United States' role following the Cold War is one of almost benign preeminence, in which it seeks to spread liberal democracy through economic globalization, and, failing that, military intervention. Even then, however, this military intervention is framed as part of a globalizing process, rather than any kind of unilateral imperialist endeavor. However, examining the history of the United States since nearly its inception all the way up to today reveals that nothing could be farther from the truth. The United States is an empire in the truest sense of the word, expanding its control through military force with seemingly no end other than its own enrichment. The United States' misadventure in Iraq puts the lie to the notion that US economic and military action is geared towards any kind of global progression towards liberal democracy, and forces one to re-imagine the United States' role in contemporary global affairs by recognizing the way in which it has attempted to secure its own hegemony by crippling any potential threats.

…The U.S. began the Iraq war with the goal of ridding the region of a tyrannical government that didn’t protect its people. However, a decade later, at the conclusion of the U.S. military mission in Iraq, the people are perhaps worse off than they were before the

In “One World, Rival Theories,” Jack Snyder argues classic international relations theories cannot singlehandedly explain U.S. foreign policy decisions. Rather, modern academics and politicians understand foreign policy through an “adjust[ment] of existing theories to meet new realities.” George W. Bush is often labeled realist based on his aggressive response to 9/11 terrorist attacks through hard power while Barack Obama champions a liberal worldview and utilizes soft power through multilateral institutions to employ joint air strikes and economic sanctions. While Snyder’s dialogue conveys that Bush’s foreign policy decisions in Iraq combine realist and liberal viewpoints, I maintain the Bush Administration did not successfully combine IR

This paper will look at and discuss the presidency’s actions involving Iraq from Reagan to Obama. Each and every president during this time has used different strategies and formats to get their agenda across, to not only convince the public, but the international community as well. We will show how Iraq has gone from an ally to overthrowing the government, to the ensuing turmoil that this created for everyone involved, from ours and their citizenship, governing bodies, and other world leaders. With over 35 years of intervention, we will determine if there has been a consensus of actions among our presidents, and see if there is a cohesive US strategy and long term goals that have been reached for all our effort and actions to all of this.

Following the events of September 11th, President Bush was looked to as a leader to lead the country out of chaos. “In the weeks after the attack, Bush’s approval rating rose to 90 percent—the highest recorded job-approval rating in U.S. presidential history” ( millercenter). Nowadays however, Bush is often criticized for the actions he took during the invasions. “The Bush administration’s strategy had been to reduce the U.S. military presence as Iraq’s stability improved. Yet the goal proved unattainable, owing in part to the power vacuum left by the dismantling of the Iraqi army and the rise of sectarian violence within the two dominant strains of Islam in Iraq” (millercenter). Of course hindsight is always 20/20, but many blame the Bush Administration for the power vacuum created in the Middle East. Bush’s foreign policy typically surrounded a strong use of force and led to increase in terrorism surveillance creating a discussion that is hotly debated today Following the end of Bush’s second term, Barack Obama had won the presidency and the work in the Middle East was far from over. Obama proved to have a different ideology from Bush, wanting to remove troops from the Middle East, something he

What motivated the Bush administration to invade Iraq in 2003 despite strong opposition from the international community? On one side, the administration maintains that the invasion was necessary to prevent Iraq from developing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). In his memoir “Decision Points”, Bush argued that Saddam posed too much of a threat–he brutalized his own people, violated international demands, and sponsored terrorist groups like al-Qaeda. On the opposing side, critics of the war argue that the Bush administration used the 9/11 terrorist attack and the threat of WMDs to justify waging an illegal war against Iraq in order to extract Iraqi oil to fund the military-industrial complex, to secure Israel, and to “finish the job” of deposing Saddam. While these explanations for the invasion have some merit, they are problematic because they fail to capture the extent of the administration’s actual ambitions. An analysis of how individuals on Bush’s administration, such as Paul Wolfowitz and Condoleezza Rice, viewed the world reveals that the invasion of Iraq was intended to demonstrate the effectiveness of and necessity for preemptive action, overthrow Saddam, and transform the Middle East. However, what was perceived to be a quick and easy operation to stabilize the Middle East and secure America’s interest backfired and turned Iraq into a safe haven for terrorists.

The United States initiated Operation Iraqi Freedom on 20 March 2003, without NATO approval, beginning with targeted bombing of Iraq, and soon a full-scale invasion. This has proved to become an unpopular war, for some because of the motivations behind it or because of the perceived lack of progress in Iraq, attributed to “enemy body counts and casualty ratio data” which “is quantifiable and commonly viewed by the public as a reasonable indicator of success (or, more likely, failure)” (Boettcher and Cobb 2006: 833). It also damaged the United States’ international standing because the war in Afghanistan “was followed by the deeply controversial Iraqi war of 'shock and awe' which fractured the international legal order so carefully crafted in the crucible of Lake Success in 1945” (Steyn 2004: 7).

The decision to invade Iraq was perhaps the largest foreign policy blunder in modern Western history. Its immense cost—in the thousands of lives lost, trillions of dollars spent, and an unquantifiable amount of political capital squandered—represents an immense failure at many levels of government. Today, even though Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship and security state have been dismantled, Iraq remains ruined: its economy is in shambles, sectarian strife is rampant, and the Islamic State, a terrorist army, controls much of the northern and western parts of the nation. Iraq is a “state” in name only. In her memoir “The Unraveling” documenting her experiences in Iraq, Professor Emma Sky argues that to identify who is responsible for this failure, blame cannot be placed on just one actor. Both Western policymaking blunders—from the marginalization of experts to de-Baathification to the support of Nouri al-Maliki—and Iraqi politicians’ self-serving agendas acted in concert to exacerbate the sectarianism that ultimately tore the country apart.

One of the most heartbreaking sights was the image of a family with four children sheltering in a bunker as an incessant shower of bombs destroyed their home and nearby buildings. Exiting the bunker only brought forth even more sickening images as the family watched their neighbors being carried away on stretchers. This scene was one of the many portrayed by the media on the conflict between Israel and Gaza. Not much later my TV screen was taken over by the images of Liberia and the sickly patients diagnosed with Ebola aching for help knowing that there wasn’t any help coming. Unable to watch these stomach churning events unfold, I quickly changed the channel only to be faced with the news of yet another beheading of a westerner at the hands of Isis terrorists. Most Americans oppose the idea of America being “The World’s Policeman” because the title assumes immense responsibility. According to the Politico Poll presented by CNN, a staggering 67% of Americans believe that we shouldn’t get involved in foreign issues while 20% believe the U.S has a responsibility to use its military to protect democracy and peace. In the midst of deepening violence

The United States was once a non-interventionist nation that minded our own affairs. However, this nation is now always involved with other countries’ problems because America just cannot seem to mind its own business. The United States needs to stop getting involved in what is going on abroad frequently and start fixing problems at home because those are America’s top priority to discuss and handle. If the United States is going to consider getting involved in Foreign Affairs, the involvement should be valid and reasonable. The United States needs to significantly reduce its involvement in events abroad and mind its own business.

In the months leading to March 2003 invasion of Iraq there was significant debate between actors, domestically and internationally, over if and how the US should overthrow Saddam Hussein and his oppressive regime. The two main camps on how to negotiate the issue were realist and liberal views on international policy making. For realists the view was held that decision making should be made in the interests of the nation with or without international consent. Contrary, for liberals the ideology was held that policy decisions should be made based on what will benefit the country while also working through and with international partners. The ideology of the two main groups, realists and liberals, focused on to what extent, if any, the US should seek international approval from the UN Security Council in its endeavors to invade Iraq.

When it comes to foreign policy and America's role in the world, we are rarely a true democracy; we rarely even have much idea of what is going on. This veil of ignorance has contributed in no small part to the endless series of ghastly events. If we are to prevent a repetition of them, we as citizens must reclaim some authority over our role in the world, and not simply endorse every "war on terrorism."