US Foreign Policy Decision-Making: A Case Study of the 2003 Iraq War

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MAKING FOREIGN POLICY ESSAY
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Domestic factors..............................................................................................................................4
Individual Factors............................................................................................................................7
International factors.......................................................................................................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
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Introduction
The decisions that are made in the group by the people is politics and also people who lives in
groups like tribes and countries needs to agree on the decision, that process is conducted by the
politicians. The politicians plays vital role in running a group that can be a country or a tribe. In
every group there are people who make important decisions to run the group. In the past there
was a problem of not including the females in the group decision making process.
The international and domestic cultural boundaries and barriers are surpassed by the political
activities. The constant process of communication is done within the political actors; these
political actors include government of the country, citizens of the country, social and religious
views of the people. The impact of politics at the national level impacts the citizens directly and
their policies also impact the daily life of the people.
The essay attempts to find the factors that affected the decision made by United States to attack
Iraq in 2003 and not before that. The structure of the essay is that it will first discuss about the
individual factors then international factors will be discussed effectively in relation to the
political factors and policies made by the political organizations of the group.
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Domestic factors
The invade on Iraq have raised some compelling questions about the capability of the executive
branch to prompt the consent of the public for using military force and the role played by media
in the entire process. As a result, the government and politicians of the British were facing some
major challenges because of the decision to go for a cold war. As the war was not approved by
United Nations Security Council and was a kind of overact against the interests of United States,
the Bush government was not in the favor of the war on the basis of possible threats. With the
help of news channels and media, the Bush government was trying to make residents believe that
Iraq was involved in the manufacturing of weapons and was also supporting to al Qaeda, a
terrorist group. It became more challenging for the administration when the United States
government occupied the Iraq and Bush Government was not able to find any expected
substantiating evidence (Aliazeera, 2017). Irrespective of these factors, when the president made
an announcement for war, the majority of citizens supported his decision. To analyze the role of
misperceptions in the changing view of the public for the war with Iraq and to know the role of
media before and after The process of war, a series of polls were conducted by PIPA (program
on International policy attitudes). On the basis of the results of such polls, some misperceptions
were found which the main reason for the war was. The major perception includes close links
between Iraq and al-Qaeda, weapons held by Iraq of Mass destruction, opinion of the public at
national and international level etc. the image and identify of Iraq was arising as a state who is
supporting terrorism and is involved in the manufacturing of weapons which become the main
reason for accepting the war by the public of United States at national level (McCartney, 2004).
The domestic factors include the following sub-factors which could be the reason for the
decision to invade Iraq by the United States in 2003.
Bureaucratic Politics
This model of foreign policy decision making provides a third party perspective on how the
countries and states develop their foreign policies. The bureaucratic model focuses on the
individuals instead of focusing on the organization or a state. It states that any foreign policy is
developed on the basis of involvement of certain actors. On the basis of this model, the related
foreign policy of the United States can be defined on the basis of certain actors:
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Stakeholders: the president of the United States can be considered as the main stakeholder for
this Foreign Policy.
Action Channels: The forces held by nation and other weapons which were used by the United
States in the evasion of Iraq can be considered as action channels.
Decision Modifiers: Along with the politicians and president, the general public can also be
included in the group as they could also impact the decision took by the president.
Coalitions: It involves the opposition party that could impact enables the particular options
against the policy.
Public Opinion and the media
In the case of the Iraq war, the opinion of the public had to play a critical role as only a minority
of public supported to go for war. The main reason for the support provided by the public was
the existence of misperceptions which could not be cleared at that time. This does not mean that
misperceptions were the only reason behind the war, but these are surely one of the key factors
on the basis of which the president was able to influence the general public. It can also be said
after studying the existing literature, that media also did not play an accountable role in
presenting true and fair information to the public. Media was also a part of increasing the
misperception of the general public. It is supposed that the misperceptions of the public would
tend to corrode with time. For example, the media had covered on the progress report of David
Kay’s and functions of Iraq survey group, they believe related to WMD fall down up to 15
percent. There was also an increase in the belief that the president has tried to stretch the real
information on the basis of making a decision of war against Iraq (Renshon, 2005).
Cultural and National Identity
At the time of cold war, it was quite possible for the opposition to impact the national identity
and culture of the other nation. Culture and national identity help in shaping the imperatives and
domestics motivations that can be considered as more essential than balancing international
considerations in the formulation of policies. The decisions and behaviors of the leaders also get
impacted by culture and national identity. The behavior and decisions took by Bush were also the
results of these factors. Leadership includes the views of the public of a president's psychology,
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policies and styles and public polls are important and available widely. The main dynamics of
this psychological component is the leadership style of Bush can be seen by indicating his
willingness to work for their wishes and wants and took over required political and personal heat
while dealing with the various types of political conditions. All this behavior was the result of
the single fact which was the main reason for joining politics. Further, in the process of
analyzing his own work, he was dependent was the work of others. This can be considered as a
particular issue while writing about Mr. Bush who is not majorly observed by having a large
haze of emotions. He is either analyzed as an ideal or caricature (Henderson, 2003).
It is not easy to understand the importance of the presidency for both Mr. Bush and the
institution. Before happening of 9/11, the presidency of Mr. Bush was not effective with wholly
opposition party and the United States in Congress. The communities and local residents of
America were hardly hit by 9/11. Instant concerns with the domestic economic conditions
concealed the war against terrorism. In the point of view of president personally, the war resulted
in grievous injury as any president would take an attack as an awful event and a grave for his
country. The personality of Mr. Bush can be considered as unusual personal. The love of Mr.
Bush was palpable for his country which could be discernable in an easy manner (Zakaria &
Yew, 1994).
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Individual Factors
Foreign policies are made by the government of a country to deal with other countries. The
foreign policy of the US influenced their invasion of Iraq. Saddam Hussein decided to change the
oil rates from dollars to euros and it was considered to be the main reason why US became
against of Iraq. Iraq has the highest oil reserve after Saudi Arabia, this is why it became the vital
reason for US to occupy Iraq. After the unfortunate incident of 9/11, George W. Bush, the US
president at that time declared war against terrorism. According to their war strategy Saddam
Hussein the Iraqis President was the major culprit and their major focus was to eliminate him
from the throne. In order to do that they have made plans to invade Iraq because he was rising to
be a hero in the public eyes due to the decisions he made regarding the oil reserves. America
found link between Al-Qaeda, the terror group responsible for 9/11 attacks, and Iraq president
Saddam Hussein. On the basis of this America went on war against Iraq. Before the war it was
considered that Iraq is having nuclear weapons and the US was feeling out of power against Iraq
(Wintour, 2016).
These individual factors are responsible for the decade long war and invasion of another country.
After the attacks media and public opinions were strongly against the terrorism and Iraq and they
wanted the government to take actions against them. The individual aspects of both Saddam and
Bush were different from each other; they follow different set of principles and are grown with
those principles (Recknagel, 2000). These have the effect on their decision making and various
decisions that they have made for their respective country. The decision that Saddam made to
convert the oil prices from dollars to euros was a key one and then in return the decision made by
Bush to invade Iraq soil just so that Saddam Hussein do not succeed in his plans.
Small group invaders plays a vital role at an individual stage in exercising the needs and
requirements of the state in which it is very crucial for a leader to make the decisions that can
prove their leadership factors and the capabilities which are necessary to measure when dealing
with the foreign policy regarding the working environment of bureaucratic politics so that the
change an occur in the power dynamics. Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq wants to convert the
currency of oil reserves from dollar to euro that’s why US president decided to attack on Iraq so
this decision is being taken very fast as a good leader does also there is a conflict that there is
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some link between Iraq and Al-Qaida that is also a reason why Bush, US president wants to
attack on Iraq. So, in order to undertake oil reserves, US President Bush attacked on Iraq in 2003
(Paterson 2002). So, this proves that a leader has the ability to mould the opinion which is taken
by public because a good leader has to make strategies to take any decision specially in the case
when they are attacking on someone.
There are some basic points which focus on decision making:
 To take a decision on the behalf of whole country, the leader should have a power to
control the events which are happening and is able to answer all the doubts of people.
 The leader should have an interpersonal style to present his ideas or strategies in front of
the public of country.
 The leader should be highly motivated to make any decision because when a decision is
been taken by the leader, many people are against that decision so a leader should be of
convincing nature (Hudson 2002).
 The belief system must be good in the surroundings of a leader that helps him to interpret
the conditions to the public in the perspective of international community.
 So, all these aspects help a leader in their self-perception in decision making and the
mindset of public helps in installing the belief towards their leader.
So, again taking this aspect into the consideration of Iraq invasion, the US president wants to
establish his power over Iraq by undertaking the oil reserves so the belief system of Bush helps
him to take the decision for an attack. So, he had a mindset against Saddam that motivates him to
achieve power and affiliation by attacking Iraq. So, Bush wants to increase his authority in front
of Saddam by attacking so for this attack he made a proper strategy against Iraq, also the
activities of Iraq has been monitored by US so that they can easily make the strategies against
them without any conflict. The authority of leader can also be increased by the manipulative
methods that means pave out in order to achieve what leader wants. So, this is the common thing
between leaders of both the state as in the case when they have been opposed there is a motive of
leader to achieve the power and affiliation that can be used for motivation. So, bush acted under
Paranoia as the suspicion over him has been grown by the acts of Saddam in the perspective of
manipulating behavior (Schwartz 2007). The trust factor which deals with Saddam was at
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minimal level in the entire environment and the surrounding world could not be trusted. Overall,
in this scenario, leaders tends to go with their decision making processes as well as their
interpersonal skills and beliefs that helps them to groom further using their past experiences as
well as present actions. The leaders rely on the interpersonal beliefs which are being formed
using the past experiences as they have to act accordingly. The other decision made by Saddam
Hussein was the invasion of Kuwait so that they can acquire the worlds twenty percent of oil
reserve and also major part of the gulf of Persia. This individual decision of him was proved to
be fatal for him and the future of his country (Telhami, 2002).
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International factors
The time after the completion of war was the period when the cold war started between most of
the countries in a number of different ways. It resulted in carnages and destruction of a number
of aspects while development also took place in warfare, technologies, socio-cultural values and
politics. The decision of the United States to invade Iraq was going back during the period when
the cold war on its height. A friendly bond also took place between Iraq and the United States.
The government of the United States had relieved Saddam Hussain, the head of state of Iraq,
with damaging weapons and arms to strengthen the power as compared to his subjects. The cold
war was considered very stressful for the politicians and leaders of both countries as they were
not able to harm another country in a direct manner. Also, they were not able to share all their
decision in front of residents against another country. As the cold war is to its end, the hegemony
of United Stated was found and there were some certain courses threatening the balancing power
the global sphere. The most important and effective breakage in this relationship of both
countries emerged when Saddam took the decision to invade over Kuwait. The decision allowed
Iraq to get access for more than twenty percent of the total oil reserves of the world along with
the considerable shoreline on the Gulf of Persian. Iraq was destined by the United Nations
Security Council which had denounced unanimously Kuwait’s invasion. The plan also has
imposed a trade ban on Kuwait with Iraq. This was the main reason for negative impacts on the
related of the United States and Iraq (Hudson, 2014).
The methods which were adopted by the United States to achieve its determined objectives
between the world war and 9/11, was considered unpopular on the international level, were also
very dangerous as per the American tendencies. It is supposed that Saddam Hussain would
possibly try to decrease the value of the dollar in the upcoming years by introducing the euro as
the one and only trading currency for oil exported transactions from Iraq. It would impact the
economy and prestige of the United Stage and the situation of cold war can also occur again. At
present, the American mission is supposed to spread the ideals and values of nations at the
international level.
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Conclusion
On the basis of the above report, it can be concluded that decisions of the politicians can impact
the life of the residents as well as the functioning of the other economies as well if the decisions
are made on the international level. In the above context, it can be stated clearly that the decision
of the America president was not right as it was the only result of some social misperceptions
and the news provided by media. The main factors impacting the decision are defined in the
three main categories named as individual factors, domestic factors, and international factors. All
such types are defined along with the sub-types included in them. The individual factors largely
involve the role of leaders is making a decision. While the reason and impact on the decision and
behavior of leaders in discussed under the social and cultural identity which has been discussed
under the domestics factors. All findings are described on the basis of foreign Policy analysis
literature. The responses of the public and the politicians are discussed in a critical manner so
that both aspects positive as well as negative can be analyzed and found.
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References
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