ABSTRACT
In March 2003, the world's remaining superpower launched a pre-emptive strike on a sovereign state without UN approval or popular domestic or global support. The justification given to the world for such an attack was twofold: Iraq was accused of harbouring Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and having links to al-Qa‘ida, both of which could not be permitted in a post-9/11 world. However, when evidence for either Iraq's WMDs or links to terrorism failed to emerge in the wake of the war and the nine subsequent years of military occupation, the Bush Administration was forced to reframe the war and redefine the parameters of success. To do this, the US government began speaking about bringing democracy to Iraq as if it had always been one of the goals of the war itself. The notion that the United States could use its superior military might to invade a sovereign state, topple an existing regime and implant democracy set a new and unfortunate precedent which has come to be termed the ‘Bush doctrine’ (Jervis 2003).
