ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 focuses on the discursive reconstruction of Germany’s political space via contingent decisions. It examines how Iraq was constructed as a ‘crisis’ in the first place and how this managed to dislocate the existing hegemonic order. Following this disruption, different discursive projects aspired to make sense of the situation and write policy decisions into it. Rival constructions offered very different accounts of the situation, ranging from America’s imperial war to Germany’s irresponsible break from the Western community. Contradictory foreign policy then resulted from an environment in which none of these political narratives managed to dominate the disordered discursive terrain.
