For centuries, conflict brewed in the Middle East. With the prevalence of oil, formerly powerless countries are now transformed into economic powerhouses. But like Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, “with all great power comes great responsibility”. These responsibilities include things such as maintaining oil fields, regulating foreign affairs, and controlling radical elements within their respective nations. Unfortunately, Iraq did exactly the opposite during the 1990s. Ever since the Iran Iraq War of 1980, Iraq has been in the global spot light ever since due to its internal financial crisis. Also, with radical leaders such as Saddam Hussein, Iraq was designated a dangerous nation by the United States and allied nations (Bard 254). Their assumptions were proven correct when Iraq invaded Kuwait, crippling a steady pipeline of oil to the western world and oppressing an entire nation of people. With the global community in an uproar and Iraq overrunning Kuwait cities, the US was pressured by the United Nations to spearhead the intervention in the conflict. Because the invasion of Kuwait broke numerous international laws and threatened the livelihood of a nation, as well as global economic stability, the United States was thus justified in the liberation of Kuwait.
Iraq was always considered dangerous, especially with her leader, Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein was considered too radical and dangerous by countless military and independent analysts. Given his past in politics where he killed many of his competitors, analysts often over predicted the potency Saddam would have on the global level which catalyzed the intervention response time (Robins 122). Due to his behavior, Israel and her allies likewise became very concerned after...
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United States. Department of Defense. Department of Defense, n.d. Web. 24 Mar. 2014. .
United States. Cong. Kuwait: Security, Reform, and U.S. Policy. By Kenneth Katzman. 111 Cong., 2nd sess. Cong. Rept. N.p., 11 Apr. 2012. Web. 24 Mar. 2014. .
"United States Department of Defense." Defense.gov News Article: The Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm Timeline. N.p., 08 Aug. 2000. Web. 25 Mar. 2014. http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=45404
United States. Library of Congress. Deciding on War against Iraq. By Louis Fisher. N.p., 2003. Web. 25 Mar. 2014. .
Robins, Philip. The Middle East. New York: Oneworld Publications, 2009. Print.
“The Price of Military Folly.” U.S. News Online. 1996. 10 April 2000 . Robinson, Linda.
Saddam Hussein’s main purpose of sending troops to take over Kuwait was to take control of their oil fields, which Hussein believed would be an easy task; however, he failed to understand that the United States and United Nations were keeping a very close watch on the Iraqi’s actions. Hussein also had other motives, such as freeing himself from the debt he was drowning in from the Iran-Iraq War just two years earlier. He set the pretense for war with Kuwait by defining their refusal to give land to Iraq as an act of military belligerence. President Bush ordered the United States to respond just five days after Iraq had invaded Kuwait. If the United States had not taken action, Hussein would have possibly continued to invade other oil producing countries and take control of the United States main sources of oil as well as threaten a number of innocent people’s lives.
Carter, Stephen L., "The Constitutionality of the War Powers Resolution" (1984). Faculty Scholarship Series. Paper 2225.
In September 1980, a very destructive war with Iran was started by Saddam Hussein. This was a result of an invasion in Iran. This invasion spurred an eight year war. Saddam used c...
Retrieved November 7, 2013, from http://www.cds.gov/i http://www.washingtonpost.com. Cnn.com,. Marines, Iraqis join forces to shut down Fallujah. Retrieved November 7, 2013, from http://www.cnn.com. McCarthy, R. (2004).
Stephen L. Carter, “The Constituionality of the War Powers Resolution,” Virginia Law Review, Vol. 70, No. 1, February 1984, http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/stable/1072825.
Krieger, David. "The War on Iraq as Illegal and Illegitimate by David Krieger." The War on Iraq
This I’ll admit was a very interesting book that looked at what could have really caused the Iraq war and whether we really had to go to war. The book talks about the flaws with the reasons that Bush proposed for going to war with Iraq and why we haven’t had a fuller victory yet. The book basically goes into details about the four observations that arise from examining certain aspects of the war and afterwards. In the next few pages I’ll be summarizing the book then stating my analysis and opinions about ideas presented in the book.
Christopher D. O’Sullivan, Colin Powell: American Power and Intervention from Vietnam to Iraq (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009), 62.
The Iraq war, also known as the second Gulf War, is a five-year, ongoing military campaign which started on March 20, 2003 with the invasion of Iraq by U.S. troops. One of the most controversial events in the history of the western world, the war has caused an unimaginable number of deaths, and spending of ridiculous amounts of money. The reason for invasion war Iraq’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction, which eventually was disproved by weapons inspectors. Many people question George W. Bush’s decision to engage a war in Iraq, but there might be greater reason why the decision was made. The ideas of George W. Bush might have been sculpted by one of the greatest works of all time, "The Prince."
Pre-invasion Iraq reflected the views and policies of its leader, Saddam Hussein, who made his first political appearance as a supporter of the Ba’ath Party. He was jailed in 1967 for this, and after his escape quickly rose to power within the faction. (Saddam Hussein Biography, 2008) Saddam became known for his political talent and progressiveness, and soon became a popular politician. After working on extensive unification and expansion efforts for the Ba’athists, the man rose to vice chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council. Faced with a tremendous amount of religious, racial, social and economic divisions, Saddam launched a campaign of total control to bring about stability.
SUMMARY: The Syrian Civil War between the Syrian government, and the insurgents, as well as the Free Syrian Army has been escalating since early 2011. The United States, and our allies have faced difficulty in sending aid to Syria, and continue to deal with obstacles in sending even basic medications to Syrian civilians. However, the United States and its allies have also contributed to the lack of organization and the disparity in Syria by sending aid and artillery to individuals based only on political connection, and ignoring organization, local alliances, and without a true understanding of the reality of the Syrian localities to best protect the Syrian protestors. The question addressed in this memo will be defining the viable options to be pursued in Syria, how to pursue them, and assessing the most beneficial path of least resistance when offering aid, funds, and artillery to specific groups in the country. The recommendation will be that although the best alternative action item would be to choose a Syrian group with the least oppositional values comparative to the United States to fund, supply with arms, and train; that the United States should do nothing for the time being. Given the physical and financial risk involved with the Syrian Civil War, it would be prudent for the United States to simply observe how the war progresses over the next several months, as well as complete some research to truly understand the state of affairs in local areas of Syria to determine the extent to which the United States could identify a group to provide aid to, as well as the extent to which the United States involvement would be within Syria.
The pro-Israel intervention represented the US foreign policy reaction when the violation to regional stability was committed by Israel. The cases discussed above were evaluated against the US reaction to Israel’s regional behaviour; in terms of whether the Israeli behaviour served or hampered US interest in maintaining regional stability and whether or not the US opposed Israel when it acted in ways that the United States deemed undesirable. It was concluded that, as a general rule, Washington was ready to intervene to address any violation to the status quo in the Middle East system except when this violation was committed by its regional surrogate. Israel had contributed directly in destabilizing the Middle East system (pushing the system out of its equilibrium point) in several cases, four of which have been discussed above. These crises, in spite of their negative effect on regional stability, witnessed minimal US reaction.
The Iraq War was a protracted armed conflict that began with the 2003 invasion of Iraq by a US-led coalition. The US wanted to destroy Saddam Hussein’s regime and bring democracy. To addition to that, US and its allies believed that Iraq had secret stocks of chemical and nuclear weapons, hence Iraq was a threat to the world (Axford 2010). In March 2003, US air bombed Baghdad and Saddam escaped Iraq. The invasion disarmed the government of Saddam Hussein. President Bush in March 2003 gave a premature speech, that tyrant of Iraq has fallen and US has freed its people. President Bush flew into Iraq to show the world that the war is over, even though nothing was accomplished (Kirk et al. 2014). Iraq was facing 13 years of scantions, therefore regime diverted its resources to flexible networks of patronage that kept it in power (Dodge 2007, 88). Iraq faced widespread of lawlessness and after the violent regime changed US could not control the situation. Iraqi civilians were looting, attacking ministries building and this resulted into a series of event (Kirk et al. 2014) . From a military perspective the regime was taken down, but they made no commitment to rebuild or secure the country.
Thakur, R. & Sidhu, W. P. S., 2006. The Iraq Crisis and World Order: Strutural, Institutional and Normative Challenges. Tokyo: United Nations University Press.