This book examines American policy toward Iraq between 1979 and 2009. In that period American policy evolved through a series of stages: Initially, the Iranian Revolution and fear of an Iranian threat to America's regional allies and interests led to a ‘tilt’ toward Saddam Hussein's Iraq that then became a full-blown effort to co-opt Iraq as an American regional proxy. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 then precipitated a policy reversal and propelled Iraq to the status of regional enemy number one. The Bush administration sought to destroy the Iraqi threat in the 1991 Gulf War but left Sad ... More

This book examines American policy toward Iraq between 1979 and 2009. In that period American policy evolved through a series of stages: Initially, the Iranian Revolution and fear of an Iranian threat to America's regional allies and interests led to a ‘tilt’ toward Saddam Hussein's Iraq that then became a full-blown effort to co-opt Iraq as an American regional proxy. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 then precipitated a policy reversal and propelled Iraq to the status of regional enemy number one. The Bush administration sought to destroy the Iraqi threat in the 1991 Gulf War but left Saddam in power. The Clinton administration then sought to contain Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction programmes through the application of sanctions and weapons inspections. Finally, believing containment to have failed, and motivated and empowered by fears generated by the attacks of September 11th 2001, the administration of George W. Bush sought to eliminate the Iraqi threat in the Iraq War of 2003, only to find no weapons of mass destruction and to become mired in a failing effort to transform Iraq into a beacon of democracy in the Middle East. The book explains this policy trajectory in terms of the American effort to restore a regional hegemonic position lost in 1979 and uses a theoretical framework that emphasises the American role in managing the global economy, the centrality of Persian Gulf oil to that role and long-term change in the American political system.