The Bush Administration and the Invasion of Iraq
Few political issues are more hotly debated today than the question of whether or not the Bush Administration was right to invade Iraq when and how it did. Evan Thomas (2003) noted that media elites and pundits, politicians from both major American political parties, and foreign heads of government have all charged that George W. Bush has failed to give a compelling or even adequate reason to rush into war with Iraq. The much-discussed ôweapons of mass destructionö said to be possessed by Iraq and Saddam Hussein have failed to materialize; having ôwon the warö with exemplary speed and limited loss of American and Allied troops, winning the ôpeaceö has proven to be more difficult than was anticipated (Thomas, 2003). Simultaneously, there are those critics of President Bush who believe that the war and the ensuing peace is far too costly for an America with domestic economic issues of her own, and that American strategies for securing Iraq for a new democratic regime have been insufficiently inclusive of other world powers (Thomas, 2003).
However, despite these criticism, the Bush Administration has undertaken in invading and restructuring Iraq a necessary if difficult and costly task. That task is multifaceted. On the one hand, President Bush has moved to eliminate the threat to regional and global peace posed by a dictator and his brutal, inhumane, and genocidal regime. On the other hand, President Bush has sent a loud message to terrorists and rogue states that the United States will no longer tolerate threats û direct or implicit û against her people, territory and allies (Adelman, 2002). As the sole remaining superpower, the United States has, under the aegis of the Bush Administration, finally told the world that it will not tolerate attacks of any kind and that it will use its military, political, and economic muscle to take action against its enemies.
Th...