“The invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the mismanagement of what followed significantly diminished American power,” writes KoriSchake. But in spite of America’s errors and flaws, she believes it continues to be the indispensable power
of Iraq in 2003 and the mismanagement of what followed significantly diminished American power, making our security and prosperity more difficult and costly to sustain. They were mistakes of historic proportions. Yet they were not America’s first significant foreign-policy debacle, nor the first time the United States has been a flawed beacon of its values.
If containment of Iraq could have been sustained another year or two, the Bush administration might have chosen a different course. But in the “unipolar moment” a decade after the Soviet Union’s demise, with few restraints on American power, policymakers made frightened choices. The attacks on America were so recent and, not knowing the dimensions of the terrorist threat, we in the Bush administration made a number of damaging decisions.
The invasion increased Iranian state power in the region and sectarian conflicts among Muslims. It distracted resources from the war in Afghanistan, fractured European solidarity and placed an enormous burden on newallies to justify their participation or abstention. On top of all that, it caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and more than 4,400 Americans.
What has been unique about American hegemony is the dominant power’s willingness to voluntarily constrain its freedom of action through rules, alliances, and international institutions. Meaningful participation by small and mid-sized powers legitimated outcomes and mobilised voluntary contributions to collective action.
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