TJP Turkish Journal of Politics Vol. 2 No. 2 Winter 2011
Invasion of Iraq: A Reflection of Realism
Ramazan Özdemir
Fatih University, rozdemir@fatih.edu.tr
Abstract
Theories provide a solid basis for understanding the world politics from the ancient to modern
times. Realism, one of the main theories of international relations, makes it possible to have a
sense of the relations between Athenians and Melians hundreds of years ago while it facilitates
our understanding of American existence in the Middle East in the twenty first century. American
unilateral action in Iraq in spite of domestic and foreign opposition for the sake of world hegemony
is nothing more than a reflection of realist principles although American policy makers claim that
Iraq was ruled by an irrational leader who shouldn’t be appeased by any means and that democracy
should be established in this country as an example in the Middle East.
Keywords
Realism, Unilateralism, Rationality, Democracy, Iraq.
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Introduction
The invasion of Iraq in 2003 has been one
of the most important events in the recent
history. Thus, having an understanding of
this event from different perspectives has
a paramount significance not only for the
students of International Relations but also
for those who study the near history of the
world. This is very clear from the effects of
the war in the region. However, when we look
at the causes of it, we see some arguments
which have been proved to be inadequate:
the claims of Iraq’s possession of weapons
of mass destruction, Saddam’s support for
terrorism, and so on. The inadequacy of
the arguments to go to war created some
question marks in people’s minds and the
war has been harshly criticized by people
not only outside but also inside the USA
from that time on.
The assistance of theories is essential
to recognize and evaluate the war in Iraq
which has been affecting millions of people’s
lives and many state policies just like that
assistance is an indispensable element to
elaborate other issues in world politics, and
the realist theory of international relations
is the one that can be best used to have a
broad apprehension of the game played in
Turkey’s southern border due to the fact
that, as Scott Burchill states in his article,
Realism and Neorealism, ‘Realism is widely
regarded as the most influential theoretical
tradition in International Relations, even by
its harshest critics.’(Burchill 2010, 70)
Understanding the Invasion of
Iraq from the Perspective of
Realism
The aim of realism is to look through the
events in world politics as they are, and it
doesn’t deal with the way that they should
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or might be. Since realism has been very
effective in American politics through her
history and American leaders learned from
realism to focus on interests rather than
anything else, I believe that it describes the
main characteristics of the war and that it is
first necessary to illustrate the war as it is,
and then the ways that it should have been
carried out can be looked upon.
For the theoretical framework on which
the understanding of the war in Iraq will
be based upon, it is more than a necessity
to mention Morgenthau’s six principles of
political realism (Morgenthau 1985, 4-14),
all of which are possible to be seen in the
process of the issue:
1.There are objective laws that have
roots in human nature and they govern
the politics. As the human nature has
not changed since the early history of
humankind, these laws do not change.
2. The concept of interest that is
defined in terms of power is the main
signpost that helps understand the
international politics. Statesmen
(should) always behave in a way that
is necessitated by the benefit of their
country, not by their motives or
ideological preferences. What is more,
they (should) take the power relations
into account which means there is
no place for moral concerns and they
choose the possible alternative, not
the desirable one.
3. The concept of interest that is
defined as power is objective and
universally valid but the meaning is
not fixed, which indicates the power of
states may change in time in a way that
is determined by the environment.
Thus, the contemporary world politics
can be transformed into a different
context.
TJP Turkish Journal of Politics Vol. 2 No. 2 Winter 2011
4. There are universal moral principles
but they cannot be applied to state
actions. Individuals may insist that
justice comes first even if the outcome
is in disadvantage of them; however,
states do not have the right to say
it as they are responsible for those
inhabiting in their territories and the
moral principle of survival has utmost
significance for them.
5. It is not true for states to identify
their moral aspirations with the moral
laws governing the universe. If they are
to obey the universal moral principles,
these principles should be in their
own advantage, which means they
should make use of these principles to
rationalize their actions and give the
message that they are taking morally
right steps.
6. International domain is different
from any other field of human concern
and has its own standards such as
interest defined in terms of power. The
decision makers should first answer
whether the alternative policies on
the way of being implemented will
increase the state power or not.
It is possible to see the traces of these
principles in the American decision of
invading Iraq. First of all, mankind has
constantly been in pursuit of power
throughout the history and the struggle for
power is a part of human nature. From the very
early times on, in every single community,
there has always been a competition among
people to lead the society in which they
have lived. The states, on the other hand,
consist of people and it is natural for them
to compete with one another to be a leading
actor in the international community as this
is an objective law having roots in human
nature. Today, the United States is and has
been the hegemon since the collapse of the
USSR and, very understandably, she doesn’t
want to lose her status. In 2003, when she
felt that the continuing American hegemony
was under threat because of the attacks on
American heartland, the USA didn’t hesitate
to invade Iraq.
Secondly, American decision makers
believed that the US interests necessitated
the invasion. They were aware of the fact
that it was feasible to occupy Iraq rather
than Iran or North Korea in terms of
military power capabilities and it wouldn’t
be appropriate to take the moral concerns,
namely whether there were really weapons
of mass destruction or not, into account
in the decision making process. An attack
on Iran or North Korea could have cost
more for the USA in respect to casualties
and military expenses, so they must have
found it more possible to attack Iraq when
they took the power relations into account.
Therefore, we can say that they did what the
national interest asked them to do from the
perspective of realism.
Thirdly, American decision makers were
also aware that balance of power was not
permanent and if they hadn’t taken action
just after the attacks on twin towers and
Pentagon, the image of the USA would have
been damaged. It is generally true that image
comes before reality and once the perception
of weakness is given, it can lead to serious
consequences for a state to be borne. In the
example of America after 9/11, the image
of a vulnerable USA unable to retaliate the
assaults on her symbolic centers could have
given rise to attempts to challenge American
power, and what is more, these attempts
could have led to a new world order. It was
sure that this new world order wouldn’t have
been for the benefit of the USA, a risk which
‘realist’ American decision makers could not
dare to take.
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Next, from the viewpoint of realism,
American administrative staff could not
have behaved in a way that ‘justice’ required
even if they had wished to do so. I prefer to
argue that the war was an unjust one since
the American claims, such as the presence of
weapons of mass destruction and assistance
to terrorist groups, to go to war turned out
to be invalid in time since any weapons
of mass destruction was found after the
invasion and there was no concrete evidence
indicating Iraqi assistance to terrorist
organizations. However, as states have to
put the survival of the state in the first place
in the hierarchy of needs and the attacks on
9/11 threatened this number one need and
called for revenge, taking the plunge at the
expense of justice was a must for the USA.
‘The American way of life’ was in danger and
it was crucial.
For the fifth one, ‘universal moral
principles of democracy and advocacy of
human rights’ were the ones to be obeyed
by every actor in the international society
for the USA just before the combat against
Iraq, a country which was administered by a
dictator capable of doing whatever he wished
in an authoritarian regime. Americans
highlighted the moral principles which
would serve their interests and ignored
the rest. Saddam was violating the very
basic human rights even against his own
people; cast aside those belonging to other
states such as the USA who had the bitter
experience on 9/11. He was the one who
used chemical weapons on his people just a
few years ago and it would be very usual for
him to attack recklessly any other nation.
He was not only a threat to the USA but also
one to any member of the contemporary
international society, so it would be right
to overthrow him and set Iraqi people free
from their chains. The American invasion of
Iraq would bring the democracy which was
the most desirable end. The message was
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extremely clear: the ‘realist’ USA was acting
rationally on behalf of the democratic states
and she was taking the right steps.
Finally, the question for the decision
maker to be answered is: ‘Will this policy
affect the power of the state in a positive
or a negative way?’ If the answer is that the
policy will influence the state power in a
negative way, there should be no possibility
of implementing that policy; however, if the
answer is that it will evolve the state power
into a bigger level, the administration has
the responsibility of applying that policy
no matter if it is morally right or wrong. As
the international sphere of world politics is
incomparable to any other field of human
concerns, there is nothing to do with moral
judgments which may or should be binding
for individual persons. Thus, the American
decision makers must have thought that
the war would demonstrate the American
military power to the world and deter any
probable rival state from challenging the
USA. Moreover, it would increase the self
esteem of American citizens; give them the
necessary motivation to unite together, and
provide them with the reasons to bear all the
security precautions that limit the freedoms
in the country, which would increase the
‘national security’ excluding all the ‘others’
from the society. We may explain the
situation of many people in the USA taken
into custody without solid evidence in the
process after 9/11. The ‘natural resources’ in
Iraq, namely petrol, must also have helped
the American decision makers wage war on
Iraq. They would make use of the resources
after the invasion and compensate the
military expenditure of the USA in a way to
relax American economy. All of these reasons
would increase the American ‘state power.’
The three key terms that I have deliberately
used in quotation marks, ‘national security’,
‘natural resources’, and ‘state power’, are the
significant motives which are emphasized by
TJP Turkish Journal of Politics Vol. 2 No. 2 Winter 2011
the international theory of realism.
Thucydides: “The Strong Do
What They Have the Power to do
and the Weak Accept What they
Have to Accept”
Thucydides was the very early founding
father of the classical realism and ‘the classical
realist lineage begins with Thucydides’
representation of power politics as a law
of human behavior.’ (Dunne and Schmidt
2004, 167). His famous statement-the iron
law of realism ‘the strong do what they have
to do and the weak accept what they have
to accept’ can be a satisfying rationalization
for the war in Iraq. It is possible to examine
the reflection of this statement in the well
known ‘Melian Dialogue’ in which the
Athenian leaders forced the Melians to be
their slaves. When the Melians asked how
it could be just as good for them to be the
slaves as for the Athenians to be the masters,
the Athenians answered that the Melians
would save themselves by giving in, and the
Athenians would be able to profit from the
Melians by not destroying them. (Dunne
and Schmidt 2004, 168). So, the Athenians
wanted the Melians to accept what they had
to accept.
We can also take Thucydides’ explanation
for the Peloponnesian War, which took
place between the great powers-namely
Athens and Sparta-of the ancient Greek
to dominate the geography of the ancient
Greece, and apply it to today’s war of Iraq.
According to Thucydides, the reason of the
Peloponnesian War was that the power of
Athens sharply increased and her strength
frightened Sparta. In this situation, Sparta
was after her survival and didn’t want
to lose her influence in power politics.
Spartans felt a huge threat from the rising
power of Athenians and thought they would
be destroyed by Athenians if they didn’t take
action to stop them. On the other hand,
Athenians also felt the necessity that they
had to be after more power to keep their
national interest, resulting in a war between
Athens and Sparta. This was, in fact, a very
basic example of the anarchical structure
of the international system. States try to
increase their powers in the system in order
not to be overwhelmed by others, and when
they see the other parties doing the same
thing; they give rise to their efforts to gain
strength. This is like a spiral provoking every
side in the game.
American Unilateralism
When we look at the period prior to
the war in Iraq, we see the reverberation of
Thucydides’ proverbial statement; strong
hegemonic power-the USA did what she had
to do and the weak-Iraq accepted what she
had to accept. The invasion of Iraq seems
to prove a very well known significant
element of the realist tradition, according
to which when the hegemonic power in the
international system wants a war, there
is almost nothing that other actors in the
system can do to prevent that power from
going to war. The USA was nearly alone
just before waging the war except for a few
supporters such as the United Kingdom,
Spain, Italy and other smaller nations. On
the other hand, the opposing actors both
inside and outside the USA were so many
that they were incomparable to the ones
which supported the American invasion.
The opponents of the war claimed that the
war would destabilize Iraq in specific and
the Middle East in general. The countries in
the Middle East including Turkey declared
their discomfort relating to the probable
consequences of the war. Moreover, the
role of Iraqi government was unclear in
the attacks on 9/11 in addition to the
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uncertainty of weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq. Although there were global protests
against the war in the process leading
to the battle in Iraq-for example “more
than 50,000 Americans converged on the
National Mall in the centre of Washington,
in one of the biggest protests since the
build-up for war began” (BBC 2003), we
can still say that the support of American
public was relatively high at the beginning
as a result of the propaganda of Bush
administration to make people believe in
the necessity of the war. Then, the support
started to decline just after a while as the
casualties came back home from the war
zone. In addition to the resistance from the
public, there were many other units in the
American society and politics that formed a
strong opposition to the war. For instance,
in July 2004, Iraq Veterans against the
War (IVAW) was founded by the soldiers
who fought in Iraq and they tried to mold
public opinion to stop the war organizing
protest demonstrations. (Iraq Veterans,
2004). Furthermore, the attack on Iraq
was not approved neither by the United
Nations nor any one of the leading members
of the international society such as France,
Germany and Russia, which meant the USA
and her allies were acting against both the
international law and the prominent figures
of the international system. Americans did
not take the UN decisions into consideration
in a way to prove the realist criticism of the
idea that the international institutions
were influential in world politics. The most
important point here was that the USA came
into action at the expense of undermining
the United Nations. The message of the
American unilateral action which ignored all
the actors opposing her was that if a strong
state was unable to get the UN approval, she
might feel free to go on her own way and
violate the rights of other sovereign states.
There is no doubt that it was an enormous
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threat to the world order.
Consequently, all these disagreements
could not prevent the USA from waging
the combat in Iraq because the hegemon
once decided to go to war and nothing could
stop it from the view of realist theory of
international relations. Bush declared in
an address to the nation that “the United
Nations Security Council has not lived up
to its responsibilities, so we will rise to
ours.” (CNN 2003). In the same speech,
he mentioned the public announcements
of the UN Security Council members to
veto the probable resolutions compelling
the disarmament of Iraq and accused
them of not taking the risk of military
action although they shared the American
assessment of the danger, namely Saddam
Hussein. Bush defined it as a responsibility
for the USA to guarantee the international
peace and stability, and implied that the
states that were against the military action
were incapable of seeing the true nature of
the threat. In short, Bush administration
believed in the necessity of the war for the
American interests and they meant that the
strong -the USA- would do what she had to
do and the weak-the countries opposing the
USA would accept what they had to accept.
Bush, like the Athenian leader in the ‘Melian
Dialogue’ who insisted on conquering
the Melians to enlarge Athenian empire’s
size and security, indicated American
determination and willingness to increase
the international peace and stability. He
implied that American leadership will serve
both the interests of America and the world
in general. This is indeed American way of
thinking. They have a tendency to think
that the American values of ‘freedom, open
markets, etc.’ are the best and they should
be spread over the world. On the other hand,
here, we can take the international peace
and stability as only an American interest
since the USA is the leading actor in the
TJP Turkish Journal of Politics Vol. 2 No. 2 Winter 2011
international system and the system works
for the good of the USA. Meanwhile, if we
had had an opportunity to ask the Bush
administration the reason why they wanted
to invade Iraq, they would probably have told
us that, by invading Iraq, America helped
the international system go on its own way,
and every actor in the international society
would continue to benefit from the system
in proportion to her power; however, the
USA would keep on having the biggest piece
of the cake.
In 2002, Bush had already declared
the American strategic objective as the
following: “America has, and intends to
keep, military strengths beyond challenge
- thereby making the destabilizing arms
races of other eras pointless, and limiting
rivalries to trade and other pursuits of
peace.” (The White House 2002). In fact, US
military expenditure did not diminish after
the cold war in spite of the collapse of the
USSR, which proved the emphasis of realism
on the obligation of states to continue
military competition to gain advantage in
the power struggle. For instance, Clinton
administration allocated a great amount
from the budget for the military so that the
USA militarily spent more than the total
expenditure of potential rivals. (Lieberfeld
2005, 3). For the American administrations,
extensive military power was number one
necessity for the USA to go on enjoying
the world hegemony. Just like the Spartan
fear before the rising Athenian power, the
USA must have felt the pressure before
the rising powers of Asia, namely North
Korea with 6 515 279 male and 6 418 693
female manpower between the ages of 1649 available for military service (CIA 2011),
China with 385 821 101 male and 363 789
674 female manpower between the ages of
16-49 and 4.3% military expenditures of
her GDP (CIA 2011), Russia with 34 132
156 male and 34 985 115 female manpower
between the ages of 16-49 and 3.9% military
expenditures of her GDP (CIA 2011), India
with 319 129 420 male and 296 071 637
female manpower between the ages of 1649 and 2.5% military expenditures of her
GDP (CIA 2011), and Iran with 23 619 215
male and 22 628 341 female manpower
between the ages of 16-49 and 2.5% military
expenditure of her GDP (CIA 2011). Thus,
Americans must have needed to demonstrate
their massive military force. It is sure that
these potential rivals cannot be compared
to the USA with respect to military,
technology, and economy; nevertheless, it is
an undeniable fact that they are increasing
their power. More importantly, it is a well
known fact that the above mentioned states
have nuclear weapons except for Iran, a
country much more powerful than Iraq. As
I mentioned above, none of the potential
rivals could have been more appropriate or
easier than Iraq in terms of any means of
resistance.
It is a fact that the USA didn’t feel so
free to act without taking the other polar
into account, namely the USSR, during the
cold war years. Both of the super powers had
their own objectives and certain limits or
red lines that they had to bear in mind while
actualizing their projects. Nevertheless, the
collapse of the Soviet Union led to a world in
which the USA felt free to act to increase her
interests without worrying about deterring
reactions coming from a strong opponent.
Thus, one can argue that we have been living
in a period of American unilateralism.
According to Krauthammer, the Bush
administration started a new foreign
policy in the direction of unilateralism.
Krauthammer says (Krauthammer, 2001):
…we
now
have
an
administration willing to assert
American freedom of action
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and the primacy of American
national interests. Rather than
contain American power within
a vast web of constraining
international agreements, the
new unilateralism seeks to
strengthen American power
and unashamedly deploy it on
behalf of self-defined global
ends..... The new unilateralism
recognizes the uniqueness of
the unipolar world we now
inhabit and thus marks the real
beginning of American postCold War foreign policy.
This, in fact, reflects the tough realist
perspective. If a state is able to protect and
further enlarge her interests in expense of
all others, she should act so, there is no way
out. When we investigate Krauthammer’s
words, we see that the rules of realism are
hidden in his sentences. For the ‘feeedom of
action and the primacy of American national
interests’, there is no hindrance as the USA
dominates the unipolar world in which she
defines the global ends without taking the
international agreements into account in
the absence of the supervision of a potent
adversary. It should also be noted that, from
the American point of view, they tended to
unilateralism not only because they had this
ability but also because they needed to do so
for the US national interests. In a situation
where international society was hesitant to
support the US efforts to save the system,
it was a must for the Bush administration
to go on their own way, which was required
by the very basics of realism. It was indeed
very clear in Bush’s words uttered to his
advisors “At some point, we may be the
only ones left. That’s OK with me. We are
America.” (Alterman, 2004). Bush also left
two alternatives for the rest of the world, to
be with the USA or with the terrorists, which
meant that the American strategies would
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not be open to dispute.
Realist Lesson ‘Proven’ in the
Case of Hitler
Realism has a strong stance against
appeasement and the case of Hitler provides
a good example for realists to argue that
the policy of appeasement doesn’t work.
According to realism, European powers’
failure to deter Hitler and their appeasement
policy in front of Hitler’s claims in the years
leading to the Second World War caused the
war itself. The European states hoped to
satisfy Hitler but he never stopped asking
for new concessions. That was the lesson the
Bush administration took from the history
from the viewpoint of realism. For instance,
Richard Perle, an important name in the
Bush administration, drew a correspondence
between the ‘mistakes’ done prior to the
Second World War and September 11; and
argued (Perle, 2002):
The
Continental
powers
waited until Hitler invaded Poland
in 1939 and America waited
until after September 11 to go
after Osama bin Laden. Hitler’s
self-declared ambitions and
military build-up, like bin Laden’s
demented agenda, were under
constant scrutiny long before
the acts of aggression to which
a response became unavoidable.
Both could have been stopped
by a relatively modest well-timed
pre-emption.
In the same article, he asked (Perle,
2002):
What risk do we run if
Saddam remains in power and
continues to build his arsenal of
chemical and biological weapons?
TJP Turkish Journal of Politics Vol. 2 No. 2 Winter 2011
What dangers would follow his
acquisition of nuclear weapons?
... We cannot know for sure. But
on which side would it be better
to err? How would a decision
to do nothing now and hope
for the best look when Saddam
has nuclear weapons and he
makes another run at Kuwait or
succeeds Afghanistan as terrorist
headquarters of the world?
In this way, Perle pointed out the antiappeasement emphasis of realism.
Bush administration also blamed the
previous Clinton administration for being
an appeaser of North Korea, Iraq and Osama
bin Laden, and for choosing negotiation
instead of confrontation against the threats
to American interests (Dunn 2003, 289),
though Clinton spent a great amount
of money for military expenditure to an
extent to exceed the total of all adversaries
as it was mentioned above. For the Bush
administration, not only the Clinton
administration but also the United Nations
was responsible for Saddam’s insolence
when all the resolutions broken by Saddam
were taken into consideration. Just like the
League of Nations that was destined to fail
in front of a reckless dictator, Hitler, due
to the appeasement policies, the United
Nations failed to recognize that another
reckless dictator, Saddam, was deceiving an
international institution. When the League
of Nations fell short of being successful,
the world had to pay a high price going
to a great war that affected millions of
people’s lives. Correspondingly, as the
United Nations seemed to be unsuccessful
in the case of disarming Iraq from weapons
of mass destruction, resting on the UN
would mean the repetition of appeasement
policies which were implemented by the
League of Nations just before the Second
World War and this was something that
the USA never intended to do. In this case,
there was no alternative for the hegemon
other than waging the war itself against a
state as a source of international terrorism.
This would be American self help strategy
for the survival of both the USA and the
international society. In spite of the fact
that the reason was the attacks on 9/11
carried out by a terrorist organization and
there was no concrete evidence indicating
the assistance of Iraq in the events, the
USA preferred to identify the attacks with
Saddam administration as a hostile regime.
Even though the terrorists might have their
own independent organizations, they would
need the facilities of a state to realize their
aims according to American decision makers,
which was in fact a principle of realismnamely statism. Realism takes the states as
the main actors of the international system,
which means only the states can cause
major threats. Following this principle of
realism, American administration declared
that Iraq with a dictator dominating her and
threatening the contemporary world society
was the enemy, who provided every means
of assistance to the terrorists, to the United
States, who was defending the ‘values of
democracy.’
The Importance of Spread of
‘Democracy’ and Having a
Strategic Position
The need of the USA to have a strategic
position in the Middle East in its broad
meaning covering the Central Asia and
North Africa to control the potential
American adversaries may also be used to
explain American attack on Iraq which has
very attractive rich oil reserves to be used
for the benefit of the United States. After the
Bush administration identified Iraq-as state-
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From the realist perspective, the answers
should be clear, that is the national security,
in other words, survival comes first over all
other interests and the USA intervened as it
was seen necessary for the survival.
interests” (Kıras 2004, 482), the security
of the USA has become beyond the borders
and the hegemon is aware that she needs
allies all over the world. As it is clear from
the declarations of the Bush administration,
it is a given fact that the Middle East is the
source of anti-American terrorism and it is a
major American interest to hold associates
in this specific region, one of which is Israel.
This means that the security of Israel is
important to the USA and the support of
Iraqi regime for the Palestinian ‘militants’
or ‘freedom fighters’ was a well known
reality, at least a well known claim by the
Israeli governments, which was evident
in all Israeli and American sources. Thus,
the removal of Saddam from power would
increase the security of Israel, a significant
ally of the USA in the region administered
by a democratic regime and one of ‘some
nations’ that recognized and accepted the
universal moral law of democracy. At this
point, we should remember Dulles’ realist
belief about the nature of politics: “The
moral law, happily, is a universal law but
it is recognized and accepted only by some
nations.” (Holsti 1970, 131). Then, it was
impossible for the USA to abandon Israel,
one of ‘some nations’. The annihilation of
Saddam administration would mean the
cut of Iraqi support for Palestinians and,
subsequently, the cut of Iraqi support
for Palestinians would help have an
agreement between Israel and Palestine on
a ground satisfying Israelis much more than
Palestinians. Of course, the end of IsraeliPalestinian conflict would provide the region
with stability, and the USA would release
herself from assisting Israel continuously
and have a chance to concentrate her
attention on other conflictual areas.
Additionally, in a globalized world,
with “the expansion of air travel, the wider
availability of televised news coverage, and
broad common political and ideological
For the security issues, Iran and Syria
should be kept in mind as threatening
factors to both the USA and Israel. Iranian
administration has many times declared
with terrorism, it was easier to conclude
that it would be better to drain the swampIraq than killing the flies-terrorists. Bush
frequently blamed not only Iraq but also
other authoritarian regimes in the Middle
East for producing anti-American terrorism
and claimed that a push for democracy in
Iraq, in specific, and in the Middle East, in
general, would both spread American values
and increase American national security. In
the American point of view, overthrow of
Saddam and setting up a democratic regime
in Iraq would be a good example for other
nations who were dissatisfied with their
own authoritarian regimes in the Middle
East and these nations would challenge the
dictators asking for more freedoms. It was
clear that the dictators would try to suppress
those rebelling against their regimes but
the international society would intervene
following the leader-the USA in a way to
provide the suppressed nations of Middle
East with freedom. Meanwhile, the states
who were against the American intervention
in the region would understand that the USA
was right in her point to attack Iraq. Herein,
assuming that the Bush administration was
all optimistic and pure-minded, we need to
ask two questions:
1. What is the main point of intervention?
2. Would the USA have intervened if the
‘democratization’ of Iraq and the Middle
East hadn’t been perceived important for
the American national security?
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TJP Turkish Journal of Politics Vol. 2 No. 2 Winter 2011
that the USA is the evil state in the world and
that Israel should be wiped off the map; and
Syria, which participated in every single war
waged against Israel since the foundation
of Israel in 1948, has always been an enemy
state to Israel. So, having a military base in
Iraq would provide the USA with a strategic
point to control Iran and Syria, which were
described as states posing threat to the
world peace. Invading Iraq meant being
neighbor to both Syria and Iran, and it
would be much better to be in this position
than being millions of miles away in case
of any military or intelligence operation
to protect American interests. The Bush
administration must have calculated that
these two states would feel under pressure
and pose less threat to the USA and Israel,
which was a national security issue for both
of them. This is in fact a kind of containment
policy that is supposed to work for Iran and
Syria. Moreover, striking Iraq, which would
indicate the decisiveness of the USA, would
be a serious warning for these adversaries.
Saddam Hussein: Rational or
Not?
“That states are rational actors
characterized by a decision making process
leading to choices based on national interest”
(Dougherty and Pfaltzgraff 2001, 58) is one
of the assumptions on which realism is
based. At this point, it should be noted that
there is a disagreement among the scholars
about whether Saddam Hussein was a
rational state leader or not. For instance,
Ken Waltz says (Institute of International
Studies 2003)
no matter how often the
Bush administration people say
‘containment and deterrence do
not work,’ it works as well as it
ever did for the purposes that we
always thought it was designed
to accomplish. That is, it deters
other countries from using their
weapons in ways that would
endanger the manifestly vital
interests of the United States or
those it supports. So the question
reduces to: Might they give these
things away? Well, I don’t think
we have to worry about Saddam
Hussein doing that, because if
any terrorist ever got weaponry
that they could not well get from
sources other than Iraq, we would
say, ‘Saddam Hussein did it,’ and
we’d slam him. He knows that.
Thus, Waltz thinks it was certainly
possible to deter Saddam. In the same
conversation, he made it clear that he was
willing to rely on the sanity of Saddam
Hussein in response to George Bush’s
question: ‘Do you want to rely on the sanity
of Saddam Hussein?’ Waltz claims Saddam
was a survivor taking into account that he
had been in power for thirty years. According
to him, insane people cannot preserve
themselves in power against a number of
internal and external enemies.
Waltz emphasized that Saddam never
dared to use weapons of mass destruction
against an adversary, for example the USA
during the Gulf war in 1990-1991, with the
ability to revenge in the same way. Saddam
used biological weapons on the Kurdish
people living in the Northern Iraq in 1988
but those people had nothing to retaliate,
which encouraged him to do what he did.
On the other hand, Kenneth M. Pollack
argues (Pollack, 2002):
Saddam has a number of
pathologies that make deterring
him unusually difficult. He is
an inveterate gambler and risk-
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TJP Turkish Journal of Politics Vol. 2 No. 2 Winter 2011
taker who regularly twists his
calculation of the odds to suit
his preferred course of action.
He bases his calculations on
assumptions
that
outsiders
often find bizarre and has little
understanding of the larger
world. He is a solitary decisionmaker who relies little on advice
from others.
According to Pollack, Saddam didn’t have
large sources of information about matters
outside Iraq and his intelligence services
always told him what he wanted to hear.
Pollack drew attention to the miscalculations
that Saddam did over the years following the
Iran-Iraq war in 1980, the Iraqi invasion of
Kuwait in 1990, the war in Kuwait in 199091, and the decision to threaten Kuwait
again in 1994. He pointed out that all these
mistakes, all of which took place one after
another, were done while the West was
implementing the deterrence policies, which
accordingly meant deterrence did not work.
For
the
aforementioned
realist
assumption of rational states, there is an
implication that a state does not have a place
in the international society if she does not
act in a rational way. As it is clear from the
above discussion, the Bush administration
did not accept the rationality of Saddam and
Iraqi administration; therefore, they wanted
to abolish the existence of that ‘irrational’
government from the international society.
Conclusion
The war in Iraq still remains as one of
the most important events in the world
with massive consequences for those living
in the region and realism provides a broad
perspective to understand it, though not
enough when taken alone. It is true that
realism has a pessimistic stance in world
114
politics and it takes the evil nature of human
beings as a starting point but it has many
convincing arguments, such as statism,
national security, self help, selfish interests,
unilateralism, anti-appeasement strategies,
rationality-irrationality,
geostrategy,
importance of having allies, the correlation
between needs and abilities, all of which
were mentioned above. Although there were
many other ‘irrational’ governments in the
world, from the American perspective, Iraq
was the most appropriate one in terms of
military strength, geostrategic position,
natural resources, and so on to reach
American aims of hegemony. What is more
important is that these claims seem logical;
however, they have some missing points. For
example, I don’t agree with Morgenthau that
the objective laws of politics having roots in
human nature always need to be based on
selfishness. Change is possible for people, so
it is possible for states and the international
system, too. If people learn, through an
ideal but not utopian education, to put the
goodness of humankind in the first place
and care about the issues relating to every
nation like environmental pollution and
global warming, it will also be probable for
states to regard the newly emerged problems
threatening all human beings since the
states are formed by people. It is true that
the USA is the strongest state and did what
she wanted to do, and none of the states in
the contemporary world dared to stop her.
The Bush administration people felt free to
act without limiting the US force, they used
many kinds of bombs that were forbidden
in the international agreements and killed
many civilians. The US policy makers
made their decisions in that way because
they thought in the direction of realist
tenets. What if the Bush administration
people hadn’t thought in that direction?
Would they have invaded Iraq or let those
bombs being dropped on Iraqi civilians? I
TJP Turkish Journal of Politics Vol. 2 No. 2 Winter 2011
personally don’t think so. Changing people
in the direction of respecting the common
interests of all humankind may offer the way
of changing the world in the direction of a
more peaceful international society, which is
nearly impossible with the basics of realism.
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