Invasion Of Iraq Essay

When analyzing the the invasion of Iraq through a Realist perspective, it is clear to see that it, much like Liberal Internationalism, has some serious flaws. In 1919, shortly after the Treaty of Versailles went into effect, a British historian by the name of E.H. Carr wrote the first critique of Liberal Internationalism called The Twenty Years Crisis. While not all of his critiques of Liberal Internationalism can be true of the invasion of Iraq, they share one striking similarity. Carr believed that purpose always shadows analysis. This is achieved during the invasion of Iraq when describing Bush’s lack of analysis due to his faith. As previously stated, Bush had a messianic nature in which he believed that dismantling the Iraqi government was a religiously righteous deed to do, even though he had little to no factual evidence to support his pretenses. Bush and his decision to invade Iraq exemplify Carr’s theory that purpose overshadows analysis.
At the same time, Bush’s messianic nature is directly correlated with another realist critique of Liberal Internationalism. Reinhold Niebuhr, a protestant theologian became renowned due to his christian realist critique of utopianism. In his critique, Niebuhr said that war is inevitable due to the fact that men
As outlined in one of his six principles of realism, “Political realism refuses to identify the moral aspirations of a particular nation with the moral laws that govern the universe.” The entire invasion of Iraq was based on claims that Iraq was an illiberal regime that had to dismantled for the sake of their rest of the world’s, including America’s security. Since America is a satisfied nation who spearheaded the campaign, this would imply that the United States is in charge of establishing what is considered moral for the rest of the world. This, in Morgenthau's theory is highly