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The Inevitability of the War on Iraq and Its Contradictory Security OutcomesPeter Agha
International Issues
Volume 13, Number 3, 2004
Abstract
The war on Iraq was a watershed in international relations causing serious rifts among and within NATO and the EU. Despite all the controversies surrounding and accompanying this war, this article argues that the regime change in Iraq was inevitable and urgent. Out of many reasons leading to war, two factors were crucial and provide the right explanation why this war happened in that particular moment. It concludes with the assessment of security outcomes of this war claiming that regional and international security and stability were partially strengthened. This outcome, however, was achieved indirectly, as a by-product of this war, and remains largely tentative and reversible. In Iraq itself, paradoxically, the invasion has significantly worsened security and stability and created new operational field for terrorist activities inside and outside the country. The new security challenges emerging in Iraq, however, were not produced by the decision and actual removing of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from power as such but rather by the way this war was accomplished and post-war reconstruction and stabilisation carried out.
The article starts with summarising the main reasons leading the US to war on Iraq as provided by various literature and school of thoughts. The arguments range from military, security, political, to pure economic. All are rational and reasonable, and certainly played their respective roles in the strategic thinking and decision-making of the President Bush's Administration. However, none of them adequately explains why this war happened in that particular moment, taking into account that many of these reasons had already existed for some time.