Essay --

Nino Foley 3/4/14PS 326 antiaircraft Realism V. NeoconservatismThe Iraq InvasionPolitically and economically, it could be argued that no other countrys foreign policy exercises such a powerful influence in world affairs as that of the linked States. Nowhere is this more the case than the Middle East a extremely contested and volatile region, rich with natural resources and geopolitical importance. The 2003 invasion of Iraq serves as an example of matchless the most significant events in the region in recent history. The respective lens of systemic defensive realism and domestic help constructivism via neoconservatism will be juxtaposed as explanations for the decision to use up Iraq. Defensive realism, in its tenet of states responding to threats, pits the U.S in a reactionary position afterward 9/11. Responding to the perceived threats of WMDs in Iraq, scarcity of anele caused in part by increased consumption in India and China, and an volcanic international arena in the w ake of September 11th, the U.S elected to unilaterally invade Iraq, ignoring objection from the U.N and the global community hence confirming one of the primary realist principles the unimportance of international institutions. The election of George W. Bush in 2000 introduced a powerful era of neoconservatism, an ideology whose roots can be traced bear to the 1960s and would exercise momentous influence in the decision to invade Iraq. The Bush Administration housed ten of the founding 25 members of the Project for the clean American Century, a neoconservative think-tank based in Washington, D.C. Among them were guilt President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. in concert they would advocate for American hegemon... ...hat necessitated the war. That these systemic forces are of greater importance than the casualty of an underlying ideology in the Bush Administration and are reaffirmed by the cause/effect of 9/11 and th e war in Iraq. further this perceived reaction would not have been possible without the filter by dint of which the global situation was being processed, namely neoconservatism. And this is truly where neoconservatism trumps defensive realism. The merger of neocon policy makers with a preexisting agenda to invade Iraq, combine with an administration operating from an ideology that prioritizes the preemptive use of force is a superior position when compared with a theory that is based in classifying the U.S as a reactionary actor. It was the realities of a domestic ideology in the administrator branch that paved the way for the Iraq invasion not .