ABSTRACT
The US intervention in Iraq has had a profound impact on that country, the region and for the future of US foreign policy and power. The impact is made all the more significant because, after all, this was a ‘war of choice.’ The intervention has not only largely defined the foreign policy of the Bush administration but also partly characterized the identity of the United States at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It is an irony of significant proportions that in 1990 and early 1991, the administration of George Bush Sr. made the case for repelling the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on the basis of protecting notions of sovereignty in the then ‘new world order.’ Despite the many shortcomings of the normative element of international relations during the Cold War, as both superpowers fuelled local conflicts, there was a pervasive sense of balance that characterized the period and compromised various readings of sovereignty. Obviously the issue of sovereignty was extensively debated and compromised across the 1990s too, but the war started in 2003 in Iraq, again based on choice, violated the strict interpretations of sovereignty. The consequences are obviously significant and profound. Following the fraught transatlantic diplomacy and reflecting on the repercussions of the Iraq war, Jürgen Habermas concluded that ‘the normative authority of the United States of America lies in ruins.’1 More recently examining the fallout, Richard Falk too has highlighted the ‘normative costs’ and the war’s implications for world order and the ‘evaluation of the neoconservative blueprint for U.S. foreign policy from the perspectives of world order.’ Though the BakerHamilton Report (2006) provided an opportunity for disengagement, negotiation and ‘Iraqification’, Bush chose otherwise, to initiate the ‘surge’ and ‘stay [. . .] the course.’ The implications are profound in terms of the erosion of the ‘legitimacy of American global leadership.’2 The costs and implications for Iraq are unfathomable as one considers the extent and depth of suffering, since 2003, but also for decades under the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein. The implications for Iraq’s viability are still to be played out with regional and global repercussions. The costs are far more widespread than the limited focus here. There is already a revival in the literature on US Decline3 and on 4
dream.’ The United States could be better and stronger than before, ‘let our recent mistakes bring a resurgent commitment to the basic principles of our Nation . . .’ were themes that he tried to develop alongside concepts of ‘shared leadership,’ which is a theme he has revisited in recent months.5
