Against everyone and no-one: The failure of the unipolar in Iraq and beyond

On 30 January 2001, ten days after the inauguration of President George W. Bush, his closest advisors sat down for the first meeting of the National Security Council. The opening item on the agenda was ‘Regime Change in Iraq.’ Ensuing discussion took up specific measures from the pursuit of ‘smart sanctions’ to aerial assaults in the no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq to the prospect of a coup that might topple Saddam Hussein, but there were also grand thoughts on the strategic and ideological potential of a new Iraq.