Why Did The Bush Administration Decide To Invade Iraq?

Why Did the Bush Administration Decide to Invade Iraq?NameAcademic InstitutionCourse Number and NameInstructorDue DateAbstractThe Bush Administration gave a number of rationales to explain their decision to invade Iraq, with the primary reasons being cited as the disarmament of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorist group al-Qaeda as part of the Global War on Terror. However, the following essay shall investigate the credibility of these claims and evaluate alternative reasonings for the invasion, such as secondary justifications from the Bush Administration such as humanitarian intervention and the restoration of democracy. This essay shall also investigate reasons posited by critics of the invasion, who argue that it was more likely an expression of US hegemonic power as a legacy of the 1991 Gulf War and revenge for 9/11, or otherwise a long-term pursuit of Bush and his administration to gain access to Iraq’s highly coveted oil reserves.Key Terms: Counter-restrictionism, Westphalian Sovereignty, Just War Theory, Responsibility to protect, Nuclear proliferation (Vertical and Horizontal), Hegemony, Unilateralism, UNSC, ISG, Non-conventional tools of statecraft, Axis of Evil,