The Iraq war: an International Relations Theory Analysis

Résumé du document

On the nineteenth of March 2003 America and its allies started their invasion of Iraq. This intervention had the official goal of the struggle against a terrorism-friendly country, to avoid the expansion of mass destruction weapons and establish a democratic breakthrough in the Middle East. This war was preceded by a long public opinion debate, which showed a deep opposition of European people. The U.N refused to support American action. Thus, several questions emerged from this event. The first one was on the hegemony of American power. At the first glance it seems to be able to act alone. As a consequence any multilateralism would only be due to the super power's will. Nonetheless, after few weeks of easy military victory the U.S.A faced deep difficulties in rebuilding Iraq. One must contemplate the efficiency of classic military action on a guerrilla conflict. Saddam's fall has not helped cut down terrorism as shown by the Madrid and London bombings. Therefore, we must reflect on the means of struggling against terrorism. As the army is not capable of fixing it alone, alternative approaches including other skills are needed. We will first see what the classical theories state, and how they were overstepped by others closer to the decisional power. We will then present the new International Relations ideas which were borne or reinforced by failure of the Iraq war.

Extraits

[...] A little country, suffering from more than 10 years of international boycott can not jeopardy America. To avoid this theoretical opposition American officials invented the story of the Massive Destructions Weapons and created an unbelievable link between the regime of Iraq and Al-Qaeda. This purpose was to put forward the pre-emptive or defensive war. Realists are deeply opposed to this concept. They think that behind all defensive war there is a will to change the trend of international affairs. It's a political policy in order to build a world and that is destined to a failure. [...]

[...] Pascal Vennesson tries to apply them to the international relation theory. He concludes that most of the time the realist thinkers can be seen as the reactionaries. Indeed, even if they claim the possibility for States to use violence as a common mean they also agree on the fact that internationals politics are structured by giant strengths on which human action have no effect. Therefore, if the support of a policy is due to the belief in its efficiency, realist thinkers are most of the time against intervention. [...]

[...] War on terrorism in the post realist approach As we saw it, the realist paradigm seems to be out of date due to the rise of new actors and new analysis of their interaction. A theoretical school, the post realist, integrates the realist paradigm and its contradictions to draw up new hypothesis on the international system[37]. The state still is the central actor, but act in a world full of other international Al-Qaeda) and national actors. These two main systems interacted together. [...]

[...] This shows that to deal with an international event such second gulf war International Theory needs a multi-side approach. It may comprise a thought on the theoretical understatements of the intervention's supporters and opponents as well as a dynamic consideration on the mean adopted to choose between them. II) The strong theoretical consequences of Iraq war A wonder on American power in a post-international world To begin with one has to explain why America is a Hegemonic power in the realistic paradigm. [...]

[...] It breaks the idea of a “fair and the image army has of itself. Realists thought that domestic opinion doesn't matter a lot. Nonetheless, we can agree with R. Aron when he explains that a long war abroad can “destroy the national unit” and conflicts that tear the nations[12]”. To make it short, one must see a triumph of realist paradigm in the failure of America. That is shown by the use of two quotes from Christopher Layne's papers on first gulf war that meets the American situation in 2007. [...]