Weapons Of Mass Destruction Of Iraq

The USA is worldwide known for being the major liberal democratic country. However, on 20th march 2003, the USA invaded Iraq, which was the major and the most expensive military confrontation for the USA after Cold war (Lieberfeld, 2005). This action has been argued to be the breaking and rejecting the international law of non-intervention. But, the justification of such action was given by the president of the USA – George W. Bush as following: ‘Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and support evil’, calling Iraq the constituent of ‘axis of evil’ (Baylis et al, 2008). Moreover, Weapons of Mass Destruction of Iraq were a big issue as well. This event is considered by two different theories – Realism and Liberalism. In the essay, the question - to what extent are realist approaches helpful in explaining the Iraq war of 2003 will be discussed. To begin with, it is important to understand what the theory of realism is about. There are different types of realism, however, this essay will focus only on two of them: Classical and Structural Realism. The basic realist ideas are following: 1.A pessimistic view of the human nature; 2.A belief that international relations are conflictual and they can be solved only by wars; 3.High regard of the values of national security and state survival; 4.Skepticism about the progress of IR (Jackson and Sorensen, 2010, 59). The difference between classical and structural realism is that, the most famous theorists of the first one, such as Thucydides, Machiavelli and Hobbes claim that states play the major role in international relations, while structural realists such as John Mearsheimer and Kenneth Waltz argue that the main role in this case is played by the nowadays political structure – Anarchy, ‘the system, where there is no higher authority, that states can turn to, if they get into trouble’ (Mearsheimer, 2014). On the one hand, realist approaches are very helpful in case of explaining the Iraq war of 2003, as they critically analyze the action of the USA in Iraq. First of all, realists argue, that the main reason why the states go to war is the human nature, or as Hobbes calls it – ‘state of nature’, which is mostly ‘state of war’ (Jackson and Sorensen, 2010, 64), and involuntary participation in the most important-process of survival and self-help (Lieberfeld, 2005). Moreover, from the realist perspective, attack of Iraq was one of the most important and beneficial actions for maintaining the global hegemony and reputation, especially after 9/11 tragedy (Lieberfeld, 2005). As Charles Krauthammer said: ‘The new unilateralism defines American interests far beyond narrow self-defense’ (Baylis et al, 2008). Another aspect, how realists explain the invasion of Iraq by the USA, is the fact that, for that time other enemies of the USA – North Korea, Iran and Libya were more powerful than Iraq, so it was easier for the USA to defeat exactly this country rather than others (Lieberfeld, 2005). Other approaches given by realists …show more content…
This is one of the most important arguments, for explaining the invasion of Iraq by the USA, i.e. from the liberal perspective this was the war not for American benefits, but more for the defeating the dictatorship. Humanitarian intervention is a liberal foreign policy, according to which if the state discriminates its citizens, international community may intervene with the purpose of preventing further violence on individuals (Baylis et al, 2008). In case of Iraq war, many liberalists emphasize on the human rights of Iraqi population and justify the USA’s invasion as the war against severe despotism with the aim of liberation of Iraqi people (Baylis et al, 2008). One of the most famous liberal theorists, Robert Keohane claims that the ‘boarder’ between self-defence and humanitarian intervention becomes vaguer and nowadays military confrontation may be: ‘described as both self-defence and as humanitarian or public-spirited’ (Baylis et al, 2008). Another aspect, which is extremely important in liberalism for this case is the spread of democracy in the Middle East. Liberalists believe, that the liberated Iraq would be a perfect inspirational example for other states of the Middle East to have the will of democracy and to struggle for it and to understand, that ‘democracy was not just a Western invention, but a universal human right’ (Baylis et al,