ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects on the decision-making process in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the politicization of intelligence needed to create domestic and international momentum in support of the invasion. It argues that both the George W. Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq based on politicized intelligence, as well as the Obama administration's policy of 'muddling through' and 'bait-and-bleed' strategy toward the conflict in Syria have created and fueled regional war in the Middle East. The administration's first concrete action came on February 25 when Obama signed Executive Order 13566 freezing $30 billion in assets in the USA belonging to Muammar el Qaddafi's family and key Libyan government organizations. The potentially precarious nature of the base burst into the open in 1976 in what many describe as the first Syrian civil war when Hafez al-Assad dispatched troops to Lebanon to aid Lebanese Christians who were facing defeat by Muslim forces in a civil war.
