{"id":58,"date":"2024-04-28T21:02:14","date_gmt":"2024-04-28T21:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/bennettg\/?p=58"},"modified":"2024-04-28T21:02:14","modified_gmt":"2024-04-28T21:02:14","slug":"consequences-of-the-us-invasion-of-iraq-2003","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/bennettg\/2024\/04\/28\/consequences-of-the-us-invasion-of-iraq-2003\/","title":{"rendered":"Consequences of the US invasion of Iraq 2003"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In 2003, the United States, back by a coalition of allies, invaded Iraq. This resulted in a period of political unrest in the Middle East. Before I explain the effects of the invasion it is important to have a brief understanding of why the US invaded Iraq in 2003.<\/p>\n

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First going back to the 1990-91 Iraq invasion of Kuwait. The US backed coalition performed operations desert storm and desert shield to push Iraq out of Kuwait. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed Resolution 687. Which order Iraq to shut down and destroy any Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). In 1998, Iraq stopped complying with UN protocols. Then in 2001, the al-Qaeda attacks on the US resulted in a shift of both US public opinion and the US government actions towards the Middle East, specifically Iraq. The Bush administration was already preparing to invade Iraq after 9\/11 but needed to wait a little longer. In 2002, the US congress approved the use of military forces against Iraq. However, it was not until 2003 where US Secretary of State Powell asked the UNSC to allowed military action in Iraq due to their lack of compliance on WMD. Unfortunately for Secretary Powell he did not convince the rest of the Council, but the US was unwilling to wait and invaded anyway. It is important to remember the information Secretary Powell was using was unreliable and he agreed later that the information was \u201cnot solid\u201d or false. There were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq.<\/p>\n

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The US invasion resulted in more than 200,000 Iraqis dead and Saddam Hussein dead. After the death of Hussein, there was an immediate lack of leadership in the state. The US military nor government were prepared to step to the power void they created. One of the most important effects this produced was the increased emergence and power for non-state actors and for Iranian influence in Iraq. The effect of not having a strong central government due to American invasion created a destabilized country. It was not just the death of Hussein, but the US forced the Ba\u2019ath party from Iraq as they supported Hussein. The Sunnis had been favored under Hussein and were upset with the American invasion. This is what allowed for groups like Al-Qaeda to gain increased power resulted in additional destabilization and problems.<\/p>\n

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This was important for many reasons, one of them being increased terrorist attacks on US troops and Iraqi civilians. The extremists were not interested in creating peace, rather further destabilization, and crisis. It was not just in Iraq that the destabilization was created but in neighboring countries like Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and more. It was not just the rise of non-state actors took advantage of the situation, but states like Iran did as well.<\/p>\n

Iran, Iraq, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) for many years created a tripolar system of power. However, it was common for only two of the states to be more powerful and in order to have the most power or influence they would ally with the third state. After the invasion of Iraq, it was clear that the tripolar system was coming to an end. This is important because now that Iraq was a shell of its former self both KSA and Iran wanted to both increase their regional power and limit each other\u2019s power at the same time.<\/p>\n

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In 2003, the United States, back by a coalition of allies, invaded Iraq. This resulted in a period of political unrest in the Middle East. Before I explain the effects of the invasion it is important to have a brief understanding of why the US invaded Iraq in 2003.   First going back to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5452,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/bennettg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/bennettg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/bennettg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/bennettg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5452"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/bennettg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/bennettg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/bennettg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/bennettg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/bennettg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}