The Iraq war began on March 20, 2003 with the invasion of Iraq known as “Iraqi Freedom Operation” by a coalition led by the United States, under the leadership of President George W. Bush against the Baath Party and the regime of Saddam Hussein. This invasion led to the rapid defeat of the Iraqi Army and resulted in the capture and execution of Saddam Hussein. Although the main goal of toppling the Saddam regime was fulfilled, violence continued, leading to proxy warfare between the U.S military, the new Iraqi government, and radical fundamentalist militants. The ensuing turmoil was detrimental to Iraqi society and its citizens, resulting in political chaos throughout the country and region. With the fall of the Saddam regime and rise of other …show more content…
The war encouraged militants and gave them an excuse to fight and attack western nations, especially those politically and ideologically aligned with the United States. The war bred violent insurgent cells, some of which who intended to join the fight against the United States and some who brought the fight back to their countries. “Gen. Mansour al-Turki, Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry spokesman, once told me that Saudi militants "wanted to spread their war against the United States and found that doing this was easier in their own country. The invasion of Iraq enabled them to convince others in the country to share their goals. For that reason, the invasion was very important to them."” (Brinkley). The unintentional encouragement of terrorism by the Iraq War led huge rise of fatal terrorist bombings in Iraq and outside Iraq in the Middle East. More and more American soldiers and Iraqi civilians were being targeted and killed. The death toll attributed to terrorist attacks in Iraq doubled in 2008 in comparison to 2007. The fall of the Saddam regime left a power vacuum that radical fundamentalist groups sought to fill with their stone age ideologies. “The Iraq War has provided an anti-Western motivational focus and consolidated preexisting grievances, which encourage Muslims worldwide to join terrorist groups…Iraq became …show more content…
Although the war wasn’t fought on American soil, America was directly affected economically. “The Iraq war has cost more than $800 billion so far. For the 8-1/2-year conflict in Iraq alone, that works out to nearly $3,000 a second” (Francis). The strain on American taxpayers, who were going through an economic crisis was severe. This was money that could have been invested in the public, money that could have provide healthcare and improved the standard of education and provided public investments. “Taking the 2007 Iraq budget of $138 billion, upwards of 1 million jobs were lost because the Bush Administration chose the Iraq sinkhole over public investment” (Pollin & Garret-Peltier). Throughout the economic crisis of the mid-2000’s instead of providing a stimulus to boost the economy at home, money was spent on Iraq, pushing American taxpayers to the brink and effectively pushing people further into poverty due to lack of jobs which also shrank the middle class significantly. “In 2008, the total cost of operations was about $300 billion which has already surpassed that of twelve years of the Vietnam War, and twice the cost of the Korean War. (Bassil). In 2008, the American economy was being stretched further by the Bush administration. Instead of job expansion, the unemployment rate did not decrease and jobs were not added to the economy like they should have been. Unemployment, a stiff job
The war in Syria has been going on for six years now, killing more than a quarter million people and forcing over 10 million people to leave their homes. It has started with a peaceful protest and is now a full on genocide of people dying. The protest was for the arrest and torturing of Syrian teens for the graffiti of their anti government on a wall. When people form other people that were tired of the government saw this, they wanted their president to make major reforms of their democracy. He didn't like that, so he responded with a violent reaction. He killed thousands of Syrians and more from starvation. As the war went on, more people came in to play a role in the war. These people were from many different places. It has gotten so bad that politicians don't know what to do to stop it.
The war in Iraq was declared in March 2003 for many reasons. Some of the reasons are to free Iraq, the oil, and because Saddam Hussein did not allow weapons inspectors search for nuclear weapons. The US wanted to take over Iraq and free its people from the torture they had been enduring for so long. Saddam Hussein had developed weapons of mass destruction that posed a long-term threat to America. He denied weapons inspectors access to search for nuclear war weapons and this served as a threat to other countries. The aim had been the destruction of the Iraqi society enabling the US and Britain to gain control of Iraq's huge oil reserves.
As a result of the cost of the war “America in 1991 had huge debts from immense deficit spending.” (Chapter 2, page 36) The debt America was a result of America spending money that they did not have at the time. On top of that spending they had a lend lease going during the war with Brittan. The lend lease basically meant they were shipping and aiding Brittan during the war time knowing that Brittan would not be able to repay the debts. This all happened when America was still practicing isolationism. Once America officially began to join the war the spending went through the roofs. Also small businesses suffered from the small war. In chapter one Adams states” Small farmers and store owners went under.” (Chapter 1, page
Over the next several weeks America launched over 2500 missiles on Iraq military. After this Iraq got tired of just sitting there so they finally started to fight back. They launched missiles at the barracks that were blocking Iraq from entering Saudi Arabia. Before February 24 the real ground war hadn’t even started.
...conflict. The war had a profound effect on the United States domestic life. The government had massive spending. The more than $150 billion spent throughout this war led to a severe economic crisis (Lawrence, 171.) The war also caused Americans to not trust their governmental leaders for the first time in history. This was due to the Watergate scandal along with the war efforts (Lawrence, 172.) Due to the profound effects economically and socially the war had on Americans, the U.S. should have not proceeded to entering into a battle that was not their own.
As was usual during wartime, the country was economically prosperous. However, the war had caused President Truman to abandon his former restraints on government spending. The amount of money being spent on defense has skyrocketed to supply the troops in Korea with the supplies they needed. This caused the federal deficit to increase dramatically (Pach and Richardson, 53). Another legacy leftover from the Truman days was that of the Fair Deal domestic program.
In this paper, I intend to analyze Iraq war of 2003 from Realist and Marxist/ Critical perspectives. I intend to draw a conclusion as to which theoretical framework, in my opinion, is more suitable and provides for a rational understanding of the Iraq War. While drawing comparative analysis of two competing approaches, I do not intend to dismiss one theory in entirety in favour of another. However, I do intend to weigh on a golden balance, lacunas of both theories in order to conclude as to which theory in the end provides or intends to provide a watertight analysis of the Iraq war.
The impact this had on the American economy was the first step towards the Great Depression. The involvement of the U.S. in the war was something that was certain to happen. The war was affecting our economy even before the U.S. was involved and, the American soldiers had to help to end the war before the damage became
The Iraq war, also known as the second Gulf War, is a five-year, ongoing military campaign which started on March 20, 2003 with the invasion of Iraq by U.S. troops. One of the most controversial events in the history of the western world, the war has caused an unimaginable number of deaths, and spending of ridiculous amounts of money. The reason for invasion war Iraq’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction, which eventually was disproved by weapons inspectors. Many people question George W. Bush’s decision to engage a war in Iraq, but there might be greater reason why the decision was made. The ideas of George W. Bush might have been sculpted by one of the greatest works of all time, "The Prince."
Pre-invasion Iraq reflected the views and policies of its leader, Saddam Hussein, who made his first political appearance as a supporter of the Ba’ath Party. He was jailed in 1967 for this, and after his escape quickly rose to power within the faction. (Saddam Hussein Biography, 2008) Saddam became known for his political talent and progressiveness, and soon became a popular politician. After working on extensive unification and expansion efforts for the Ba’athists, the man rose to vice chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council. Faced with a tremendous amount of religious, racial, social and economic divisions, Saddam launched a campaign of total control to bring about stability.
The purpose of this essay is to inform on the similarities and differences between systemic and domestic causes of war. According to World Politics by Jeffry Frieden, David Lake, and Kenneth Schultz, systemic causes deal with states that are unitary actors and their interactions with one another. It can deal with a state’s position within international organizations and also their relationships with other states. In contract, domestic causes of war pertain specifically to what goes on internally and factors within a state that may lead to war. Wars that occur between two or more states due to systemic and domestic causes are referred to as interstate wars.
In the Arab world in late 2010, starting in Tunisia and flowering in Egypt, a movement of people frustrated by their governments, corrupt leaders and a lack of jobs suddenly felt safe to take to the streets. The Arab Spring began when a young Tunisian man set himself on fire to protest government corruption and poor economic conditions. This action inspired a wave of protests across Tunisia, which ultimately resulted in the ousting of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from power.
The Iran – Iraq War started on September 22, 1980, when Iraq invaded Iran (Steele 14). Iraq had many reasons to invade Iran. A couple reasons were border territory issues between the nations, political issues, and the fear of the Islamic Revolution in Iran spreads into Iraq. The war continued on for eight years. In 1988, the United Nations stepped in and created a peace agreement for the two nations. The United Nations Security Council Resolution 598 was the official document that ended the Iran – Iraq War in July 1988. At that point, both nations were drained by the war. Both nations faced a drop in their economy, high death tolls, and other issues (Steele 17), but what was the main reason Iran accepted the peace agreement proposed by the
The Iraq War was a protracted armed conflict that began with the 2003 invasion of Iraq by a US-led coalition. The US wanted to destroy Saddam Hussein’s regime and bring democracy. To addition to that, US and its allies believed that Iraq had secret stocks of chemical and nuclear weapons, hence Iraq was a threat to the world (Axford 2010). In March 2003, US air bombed Baghdad and Saddam escaped Iraq. The invasion disarmed the government of Saddam Hussein. President Bush in March 2003 gave a premature speech, that tyrant of Iraq has fallen and US has freed its people. President Bush flew into Iraq to show the world that the war is over, even though nothing was accomplished (Kirk et al. 2014). Iraq was facing 13 years of scantions, therefore regime diverted its resources to flexible networks of patronage that kept it in power (Dodge 2007, 88). Iraq faced widespread of lawlessness and after the violent regime changed US could not control the situation. Iraqi civilians were looting, attacking ministries building and this resulted into a series of event (Kirk et al. 2014) . From a military perspective the regime was taken down, but they made no commitment to rebuild or secure the country.
The image of the US has been damaged and the Iraqi people have been angry and hateful toward the US ever since.