ABSTRACT

There are few defining days in the history of any nation-state. When such a day occurs, it is usually labeled in that fashion the basis of an event that delivers an unanticipated shock to a given state's political leaders and citizens. As was true of the George H. W. Bush administration, the George W. Bush administration employed a one-plus-a-few approach to foreign policymaking in general, and in confronting and then rebuilding Iraq in particular from 2002-04. Five days after Bush's UN speech on Iraq, his administration released its first NSS since assuming office, the timing of which was, by no means, coincidental. Designed to warn American adversaries in general and Iraq in particular that the United States would not tolerate the development and proliferation of WMD or the state sponsorship of terrorism. Bush's address to the UN General Assembly and his subsequent release of the NSS set the stage for concurrent, domestic and international debates regarding the need to disarm Iraq.