U.S. Intervention in Iraq

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U.S. Intervention in Iraq | |

12/8/2011 |

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The United States’ intervention in Iraq derived from the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 in the United States and ultimately resulted in the loss of nearly 3,000 American lives. This event has changed perception of threats of the United States which lead President George W. Bush to carry out a global war against terrorism. Many people criticize and believe that America’s involvement in Iraq is only to secure Iraq’s oil reserves and using the above reason to justify their actions. By achieving these goals, President Bush assured the public that a free and democratic Iraq would more likely turn against terrorism, violence, and start moving toward reconciliation and transformation. After much dispute and dissent, the United States began its “Operation Iraqi Freedom” on March 19, 2003 under the administration of President George W. Bush and other allies in hopes to assure of no weapons of mass destruction, to liberate the Iraqi people and to prominently end the regime of Saddam Hussein.

I will draw upon the framework from Gautung’s hourglass model, as well as incorporate Louis Kriesberg on nature, dynamics, and phases of intractability. Conflict analysis and resolution theories of basic human can provide a theoretical foundation as to how the United States intervening in Iraq is the resolution to the debatable conflict which itself consisted of a conventional and intractable conflict between the United States and Iraq. In this paper, I will analyze the pros and cons in how the United States used the intervention, reconstruction, and withdrawal (IRW) operations as well as where the conflicts lied in Saddam’s dictatorship in order to fulfill social, economic, and political needs of the Iraqi people and implement plans for resolution in order to stabilize the Iraqi regime.

Iraq holds a population of 17.9 million made up of 72% Arab, 23% Kurdish, and the remaining five percent of other smaller ethnic...