ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the main components of the Bush administration's foreign policy toward Iraq within the framework of existing models of diplomacy and coercive bargaining. It explores whether the Bush administration's diplomacy was aberrant in comparison with long-standing trends in the nation's interaction with world actors and whether the wranglings over Iraq marked the beginning of a new phase of American foreign policy marked by brinksmanship and unilateral action. The functionality of international institutions is presented as a means to measure their costs and benefits to America's Iraq policy in light of their broader importance to the nation's diplomacy. American diplomacy in the post-World War II era has been marked by a strong preference for multilateralism. The attacks of 11 September changed the strategic calculus for the Bush administration. With the issuance of the NSS, the Bush administration gave formal notice that it intended to abandon containment and that it had no interest in appeasement.
