Wanting War: Why the Bush Administration Invaded Iraq

by Jeffrey Record

Wanting War is the first comprehensive analysis of the often contradictory reasons why President George W. Bush went to war in Iraq and of the war’s impact on future U.S. armed intervention abroad. Though the White House sold the war as a necessity to eliminate an alleged Iraqi threat, other agendas were at play. Drawing on new assessments of George W. Bush’s presidency, recent memoirs by key administration decision makers, and Jeffrey Record’s own expertise on U.S. military interventions since World War II, Wanting War contends that Bush’s invasion of Iraq was more about the arrogance of post–Cold War American power than it was about Saddam Hussein. Ultimately, Iraq was selected not because it posed a convincing security threat but because Baghdad was militarily helpless. Operation Iraqi Freedom was a demonstration of American power, especially the will to use it. Ironically, as Record points out, a war launched to advertise American combativeness is likely to lead U.S. foreign policymakers and military leaders to be averse to using force in all but the most favorable circumstances. But this new respect for the limits of America’s conventional military power, especially as an instrument of ffecting political change in foreign cultures, and for the inherent risks and uncertainties of war, may prove to be one of the Iraq War’s few positive legacies. Record argues that the American experience in Iraq ought to be a cautionary tale for those who advocate for further U.S. military action.

226 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wanting War is a very partisan discourse condemning the war against Iraq instigated by President George W. Bush. It contents that the war was a show of force to display American power, seek revenge for an alleged assassination plot against George Herman Walker Bush, and maintain America as the world's sole superpower. The author is fond of using undefined negative terms to describe the Republican administration while finding excuses for the Democratic administrations involved in the wars of Korea and Vietnam. It is worth reading as a good historian should consider all sides of an issue or event before making an unbiased decision.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hardhitting, too much for me, although I agree with his strictures about the neo-cons.

What was interesting was the description of the divided policy for war within the neo- con theorists.

One group was primacist (nationalist hawks), whose interest was US hegemony. Thus Cheney, without interest in what happened after conquest. And so we were unprepared. The other group was neo Wilsonian or democratic imperialists, whose interest was the democratic dream imposed on other nations, nation building, Wolfowitz and later Bush and Rice. These were for nation-building but did not understand how difficult it would be and so we were unprepared even under that theory.