Cover -- EXPLAINING THE IRAQ WAR -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- CONTENTS -- FIGURES -- TABLES -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- Introduction -- Logical implications of neoconism -- 1 Comparative counterfactual analysis and the 2003 Iraq war -- The value of counterfactual historical analysis -- Comparative counterfactual analysis (CCA) -- Benefits of comparing competing counterfactual histories -- Replying to critics of counterfactual reasoning -- Conclusions and objectives moving forward -- 2 Leadership, political context(s) and the Iraq war -- Two common errors committed by proponents of neoconism -- One versus two dominant perspectives on the Iraqi threat and appropriate responses -- Decision-making context(s): one versus multiple decisions leading to war -- Gore's right-of-center leadership and hawkish foreign policy legacy -- Gore's support for unilateralism ('if necessary') and endorsement of 'axis of evil' -- Additional category 'C' evidence supporting Gore-war -- Iraq versus other foreign policy priorities -- Evaluating alternative approaches to the Iraq impasse -- Gore's position on Iraq's WMD -- Assessing the causal impact of 'relevant' differences -- Counterfactually relevant speeches and statements -- Gore's speeches to the Commonwealth Club and Council on Foreign Relations (2002) -- Commonwealth Club (CC), San Francisco, September 2002 -- Conclusions -- 3 Democratic national security advisers -- Leon Fuerth - leading candidate for national security adviser -- Richard Holbrooke - leading candidate for secretary of state -- Academic advisers -- Graham Allison - nuclear threat -- Bruce Jentelson - "tough love multilateralism" -- Policy advisers - Ashton Carter and William Perry -- Conclusions -- 4 Domestic and congressional politics -- Democratic support for authorization -- Sandy Berger - Clinton's national security adviser (1998).

Republican support for assertive multilateralism -- James Baker - former secretary of state (George H.W. Bush administration) -- Brent Scowcroft: former national security adviser for President George H.W. Bush -- Democrats and Republicans in sync on Iraq -- The Levin amendment -- Comparing Operation Desert Fox (1998) to Operation Iraqi Freedom (2002) -- Democratic endorsement of other controversial 'Republican' security policies -- The Patriot Act -- Enhanced interrogations -- Conclusions: Gore-war versus Gore-peace revisited -- 5 American intelligence failures and miscalculations -- Threat manipulation, distortions and exaggerations -- Structural/institutional explanations for intelligence failures - not leadership -- The absence of politically motivated intelligence failures? -- Sixteen words that didn't start a war? -- Cyclical nature of intelligence failures -- Dueling National Intelligence Estimates -- Summary: comparative plausibility as a determinant of WMD consensus -- "Failure of imagination," take II -- Plausibility, consensus and common decision pathologies -- Comparative plausibility: interpreting communications between Iraqi officials -- Conclusions: Gore-war versus Gore-peace revisited -- 6 Societal pressures and public opinion -- Explaining Bush's high public approval ratings -- Rallying around the flag -- Media complicity -- Conclusions: Gore-war versus Gore-peace revisited -- 7 International politics, global WMD consensus and UN power balancing -- Global consensus on WMD -- UNMOVIC updates by Hans Blix - reinforcing the global consensus on Iraq's WMD -- Britain's position on WMD, Al-Qaeda and multilateral inspections -- Tony Blair's crucial role in the 'multilateral' inspections strategy -- Comparative plausibility and the UK case for war -- Downing Street memos42 -- International diplomacy and negotiations: UNSCR 1441.

International diplomacy and negotiations over a second resolution -- The futility of Canadian and British compromises on extending inspections -- France's rejection of a timeline backed by a threat of military force -- Conclusions: Gore-war versus Gore-peace revisited -- 8 Hussein's mistakes, miscalculations and misperceptions -- Decision pathologies - Hussein's miscalculations -- Strategic ambiguity and deterrence by deception -- Saddam's overestimation of the Iranian threat -- Limited intelligence on US domestic politics -- Limited intelligence on US military plans -- Saddam's relatives, advisers and sycophants -- Summary: strategic ambiguity and the inevitability of war -- Conclusions: Gore-war versus Gore-peace revisited -- 9 Summary and implications -- Momentum, path dependence and the inevitability of war -- Momentum and comparative risks over time -- The logic of coercive diplomacy, momentum and war -- Conclusions: Gore-war versus Gore-peace revisited -- 10 Conclusion -- The 64,000 question - why the popularity of neoconism? -- Projectability as counterfactual confirmation -- Non-existent grand strategies and the myth of a Bush Doctrine -- Dispelling the myth of a Bush Doctrine -- Closing thoughts -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX.

Explaining The Iraq War provides an original critique of conventional explanations of the Iraq War.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.