ABSTRACT
The Iraq War was, quite obviously, extremely controversial. The prospect and occurrence of military action against Iraq divided elite, media, and popular opinion, and in ways that had profound repercussions for the way the crisis was reported on by the media. Fittingly then, the first part of this chapter lays the groundwork for understanding the nature of the controversy by providing an historical account of the lead-up to the invasion, by sketching out some of the consequences, and by identifying the lines along which various strands of opinion were divided. The second part of the chapter is dedicated to exploring and explaining
the competing philosophical underpinnings of – and within – both sides of the debate over the decision to use military force against Iraq in March 2003. It does this first, by sketching out a conceptual framework of the arguments that raged over the main issues involved in the debate relating to the Iraq crisis, and then by analysing the different schools of thought that arose from those arguments. These arguments and schools of thought are not just relevant to the controversy over the Iraq War, however. They also form the bedrock for many of the disagreements that have played out in relation to the subsequent military interventions in Libya and Syria.
