A US invasion, occupation, and political reformation of Iraq to serve as a lever for a pro-US series of regime changes in the Middle East were central ideas of the Project for a New American Century, from which the Bush Administration drew heavily for its defense and foreign policy officials (as well as VP.)
This is 100% it, but this goes far beyond just Bush or Iraq. If you ever want to understand what's really happening in US geopolitics, their paper, Rebuilding America's Defenses [1], is critical reading. It describes every motivation, goal, and purpose with 0 effort to fluff it up for public. This absolutely transcends parties as well. It is the position of the US political establishment. For instance Robert Kagan is the founder of the Project for the New American Century and his wife is Victoria Nuland who served as deputy head of state under Biden.
It's not easy to give cliff notes, because there's too much to say. But in general, this was at the time when the USSR had still only relatively recently fallen and the US was not only essentially the king of the world, but had 0 meaningful competition for said claim. The goal of PNAC, and of the US political establishment, was to take this scenario, expand it, and perpetuate it. So the primary point was to prevent the rise of any other power and to essentially dominate the world primarily through being seen as the unquestioned premier military power, which would entail dramatic increases in military spending, regular demonstrations of power including preemptive and unilateral attacks on other countries if necessary, and so forth, wrapped in a tidy package of 'spreading democracy and freedom.'
Most famously they acknowledged that all of their goals would be quite difficult without, in their own words, something like a new Pearl Harbor: "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor." 9/11 happened less than a year later, and everything went into overdrive, a trend that continued long after Bush was but a fading memory.
Also, there was palpable excitement in the media and everyone wanted to be a part of the big story.
I was in the offices of WNET/Channel 13 in Manhattan the day the news began moving among insiders that an invasion of Iraq was imminent. All these middle aged producers were stoked. If that was PBS you can only imagine what the vibe was like everywhere else.
Of course within a week people like this and their reporters were basically competing to get “embedded” with invading troops and tell an approved story. Wild times.
Methods aside, it is funny how quickly Republicans went from "we want to rule the whole world" to "we want nothing to do with the world and btw, foreigners get out".
There were a few reasons but an important one is that Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld were convinced by Laurie Mylroie that Iraq really had something to do with 9/11 and everybody in the administration was paranoid about another attack. Wolfowitz also felt guilty about the George H. W. Bush administration abandoning the Shiites. All of them (except maybe Powell and Armitage) already disliked Iraq, felt like the first war was unfinished business, and didn't need much prodding to go after Saddam but the 9/11 connection they thought existed gave it urgency. Ultimately it came down to Bush and he probably thought it sounded like a good idea and not for any particular reason.
Cheney and Rumsfeld had a history of paranoid fantasies going back to their Team B fake "missile gap" work in the 70s.
Both of them knew how to work the DC machine, but neither of them were ever bothered by little things like "facts". I don't think we'll ever know what they really believed.
Keystone for the Project for the New American Century. The problem is that the people who write this dross think they're in the same league as Plato or Hulme or Rousseau but they're barely above Sesame Street levels.
Project 2025 is this generation's equivalent and will be equally as successful.
There was the notion in certain (neo)conservative circles throughout the 90s that toppling Saddam really would be the trigger for a democratic wave throughout the middle east, kind of like an "Arab spring". This would benefit everyone in a kind of win-win situation: the US would have fewer enemies, and the people living there would benefit because freedom and democracy is good.
The "weapons of mass destruction" was kind of used as a pretext because they didn't believe such an argument would win popular support. It's somewhat abstract and rooted in a kind of ideology rather than pragmatism. They also genuinely believed that Saddam did have weapons of mass destructions, but just couldn't prove it. They would be found after invasion. Just a little white lie in the meanwhile.
That's really all there's to it. People get all cynical about "freedom and democracy", but that really was the goal, as a kind of "enlightened self-interest". After 9/11 this only became more acute: with the middle east part of the liberal hegemony, there would be no more Al-Qaeda (or they would be severely weakened).
Because they lied about the pretext, there was little to no broad discussion about any of this so they just operated in their ideological echo chamber. There was no one to really point out this entire notion was perhaps well-intentioned but also rather misguided and ignorant (to say nothing of the execution, which was profoundly misguided and ignorant).
But you see, this was a bigger crime than the invasion. Because it was ideologically driven on faith, no-one was looking at the actual facts. The US military could knock over Hussein, no problem, but no-one had any plan for what happened next. No state-building, not even a plan for how the civil service was going to work. Absolutely no plan to win over hearts and minds and not create the next generation of extremists. No-one checking prisoners were treated with respect.
The Iraq invasion was wrong, but the occupation was worse.
No one actually thought or thinks that. It's about control of that region. All they want are figureheads that play nice with American business. That's always been the goal.
This sounds to good to be true. Neoconservatives pushing for freedom, democracy, enlightened self-interest? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Irak, with it's stable government, large population, large army inherited from the war with Iran, and natural resources, was a strong political player in the middle east, and not quite aligned with the USA (for instance, being able and willing to threaten its closer ally Israel).
So maybe the reason was just the desire to clip those wings?
It's such a coincidence that Israel is a prosperous (and very aggressive) country and all its neighbours either keep a very low profile or are reduced to rubble... By the US, and all for the sake of democracy of course.
IMO that's unlikely. For all his faults he doesn't seem particularly egotistical. He was more likely manipulated by Cheney and the MIC and probably as shell-shocked after 9/11 as the rest of us. Dumb war; dumber pretence; not a dick-measuring contest with his dad.
W wanted "righteous revenge" for 9/11 and Cheney wanted profits from military contracts. Those were the most direct interests. (Phantom) WMDs, human rights, and oil were the other oblique excuses. Reaffirmation of the supremacy of American imperialism was another purpose. It lead to $10T of wasted treasure and 500k lives snuffed out for the egos and ambitions of foolish and crooked leaders.
It's called the Oded Yinon Plan, or just the Yinon Plan - the idea is for a certain list of countries to be weakened, while assisting Israel in becoming a regional superpower (Israel will be militarily dominant by having a strong army and then weakening other countries' armies).
You'd have to understand everything from a century before the formation of the Baath Party to how Saddam consolidated power in spite of global efforts to destabilize the people of the region for Western gain from WW1 until the 1980s.
He was both a horror and a blight on a long spanning intelligence effort that intersected with the storied history of Anglo interaction with the "Musselmen" empire.
Long story short, you can't without a Muslim perspective.
A large part of it was oil and keeping control on oil prices. People seem to forget that without the discovery of cheap way of fracking US would have required large amounts of oil to keep its economy growing and any kind of power in the region that could disrupt its oil supply had to be removed.
It's imperialism. The US has traditionally dominated the Middle East region and it's big enemy is independence and nationalism. It wants countries that are willing to obey. So they made an example of a disobedient country, which may set an example for others if successful.
> The US has traditionally dominated the Middle East
Not really and not for long enough to say traditionally. It's way more traditional for the British and French to be poking their noses into the region.
The removal of Saddam Hussein and the subsequent destabilization of Iraq can be seen as a highly successful strategic project—if viewed through the lens of geopolitical interests rather than official narratives.
It effectively eliminated Israel’s most significant regional threat and dismantled a key unifying figure for the Sunni Arab world.
Unlike other Sunni regimes that had largely aligned with American and Israeli interests, Saddam remained defiant.
The publicly stated reasons for the invasion—WMDs, democracy promotion, and anti-terrorism—were largely smokescreens meant to pacify public opinion, obscure the true motives, and keep people distracted and divided.
dragonwriter|9 months ago
somenameforme|9 months ago
It's not easy to give cliff notes, because there's too much to say. But in general, this was at the time when the USSR had still only relatively recently fallen and the US was not only essentially the king of the world, but had 0 meaningful competition for said claim. The goal of PNAC, and of the US political establishment, was to take this scenario, expand it, and perpetuate it. So the primary point was to prevent the rise of any other power and to essentially dominate the world primarily through being seen as the unquestioned premier military power, which would entail dramatic increases in military spending, regular demonstrations of power including preemptive and unilateral attacks on other countries if necessary, and so forth, wrapped in a tidy package of 'spreading democracy and freedom.'
Most famously they acknowledged that all of their goals would be quite difficult without, in their own words, something like a new Pearl Harbor: "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor." 9/11 happened less than a year later, and everything went into overdrive, a trend that continued long after Bush was but a fading memory.
[1] - https://archive.org/details/RebuildingAmericasDefenses
subpixel|9 months ago
I was in the offices of WNET/Channel 13 in Manhattan the day the news began moving among insiders that an invasion of Iraq was imminent. All these middle aged producers were stoked. If that was PBS you can only imagine what the vibe was like everywhere else.
Of course within a week people like this and their reporters were basically competing to get “embedded” with invading troops and tell an approved story. Wild times.
rich_sasha|9 months ago
candlemas|9 months ago
michael1999|9 months ago
Both of them knew how to work the DC machine, but neither of them were ever bothered by little things like "facts". I don't think we'll ever know what they really believed.
4ndrewl|9 months ago
Project 2025 is this generation's equivalent and will be equally as successful.
arp242|9 months ago
The "weapons of mass destruction" was kind of used as a pretext because they didn't believe such an argument would win popular support. It's somewhat abstract and rooted in a kind of ideology rather than pragmatism. They also genuinely believed that Saddam did have weapons of mass destructions, but just couldn't prove it. They would be found after invasion. Just a little white lie in the meanwhile.
That's really all there's to it. People get all cynical about "freedom and democracy", but that really was the goal, as a kind of "enlightened self-interest". After 9/11 this only became more acute: with the middle east part of the liberal hegemony, there would be no more Al-Qaeda (or they would be severely weakened).
Because they lied about the pretext, there was little to no broad discussion about any of this so they just operated in their ideological echo chamber. There was no one to really point out this entire notion was perhaps well-intentioned but also rather misguided and ignorant (to say nothing of the execution, which was profoundly misguided and ignorant).
moomin|9 months ago
The Iraq invasion was wrong, but the occupation was worse.
bongodongobob|9 months ago
aeve890|9 months ago
rixed|9 months ago
So maybe the reason was just the desire to clip those wings?
throw310822|9 months ago
Retric|9 months ago
The signal war plans leak shows decisions for these kinds of things aren’t necessarily particularly well thought out.
djohnston|9 months ago
mycatisblack|9 months ago
motorest|9 months ago
Wikipedia has a pretty good summary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prelude_to_the_Iraq_War
jokoon|9 months ago
The us was not going to invade Iran or Saudi Arabia. Fighting militias is difficult.
Having troops there allowed to get the enemy (jihadists) where it was, so troops would serve as a lightning rod.
Iraq was probably the place that was the easiest to invade without to many consequences, where nobody would cry about Saddam going away.
I'm trying to see what strategy it was, of course geopolitics are ugly.
burnt-resistor|9 months ago
shrubble|9 months ago
mrkeen|9 months ago
Or maybe it was just Cheney's idea to funnel money to himself via Halliburton.
washadjeffmad|9 months ago
He was both a horror and a blight on a long spanning intelligence effort that intersected with the storied history of Anglo interaction with the "Musselmen" empire.
Long story short, you can't without a Muslim perspective.
xbmcuser|9 months ago
Synaesthesia|9 months ago
jemmyw|9 months ago
Not really and not for long enough to say traditionally. It's way more traditional for the British and French to be poking their noses into the region.
nova22033|9 months ago
iJohnDoe|9 months ago
ekianjo|9 months ago
ajb|9 months ago
IncreasePosts|9 months ago
sjzizbxjzj|9 months ago
[deleted]
like_any_other|9 months ago
[deleted]
MaxPock|9 months ago
It effectively eliminated Israel’s most significant regional threat and dismantled a key unifying figure for the Sunni Arab world.
Unlike other Sunni regimes that had largely aligned with American and Israeli interests, Saddam remained defiant.
The publicly stated reasons for the invasion—WMDs, democracy promotion, and anti-terrorism—were largely smokescreens meant to pacify public opinion, obscure the true motives, and keep people distracted and divided.