In the Political Connection that lead to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, the true motivation for the 2003 invasion of Iraq is spelled out. This article is an analysis of the political ramifications that stem from the invasion as well as a look at how the Iraq invasion has been subsequently analyzed.

Nearly all political analysis of the war in Iraq: it's causes and subsequent deterioration, are flawed because of political motivations. It is simply not possible to put on rose colored glasses and see one political perspective as being the problem and the other as innocent. Unfortunately, both American political parties and a whole range of political ideologies are collectively guilty for a range of political decisions that have produced the chaos in Iraq; have sapped American political and military will, and cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. In this sense the Vietnam war is easier to analyze. It's origins and escalation are the responsibilities of Democratic administrations and it's unfortunate morality-draining turn and poor outcome the responsibility of Republican administrations. Iraq is much more a jumble of misguided policies, lost opportunities, and bad political decisions. Trying to understand the war through one political lens fails to provide an adequate means for complete analysis.

It is convenient of Democrats to place the blame for the current situation in Iraq on the shoulders of the Bush Administration. However; his is just the last chain in a series of connections that put the United States (and Great Britain) in the position they are now. It is equally convenient for Republicans to place the blame for a series of missed opportunities to prevent the 9/11 terrorist attack and subsequent war on the Clinton administration. While both of these can be true at some level there are many additional factors that must be included and in the end no political party, no ideology, no "fourth estate watchdog" can escape responsibility. It is a collection of bad policies, incorrect perceptions and misguided motives that bring the Western powers to the present situation.

The chain of events that brings us to the present can be traced back many steps and many decades but the most convenient starting point is with President Jimmy Carter. It was President Carter's decision to sacrifice an immense amount of political capital and international clout to save the lives of hostages in Iran. To this day President Carter considers it is most important achievement bringing the 53 Americans home safely. Unfortunately, countless thousands may have died subsequently because of what President Carter sacrificed to achieve this goal. It should be remembered that the hostages were taken from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. According to international law this is American territory so the kidnappings constituted an invasion of the United States. The prestige and strength of the United States was on the line in 1979/80 and America essentially "blinked." Had he done what Ronald Reagan almost surely would have (brought the full force of the U.S. military upon that embassy) it is unlikely Iran would be where it is today. It is also unlikely the rash of kidnappings that became the norm in Beirut in the 1980s would have occurred either. Since kidnapping became a successful political tool, many groups used it. Furthermore, there might not have been a need or desire to bolster Saddam Hussein when he launched his ill-fated war against Iran. Of course, it is very likely that many, if not most of the hostages would not have survived. Ultimately; though, many more lives have been lost and much more peace sacrificed because Iran was allowed to succeed in 1979/80.

That a Reagan Presidency in 1979 would probably have produced different results in Tehran hardly excuses his administration for a series of policies and decisions that ultimately bring us to today. It was the Reagan Administration that emboldened and armed Saddam Hussein. Those images of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein cannot be ignored. That Saddam did possess chemical weapons at one time (and used them) is also the product of the Reagan administration that sold them to him. Senate Committee records detail a range of sales authorized during the Reagan administration. More significantly, it was the Reagan administration that turned Afghanistan into a fundamentalist muslim country and helped create the legend of Osama bin Laden. The Reagan/Bush administrations ended the cold war by creating a new enemy; one that was far more willing to attack the Western powers because the old cold war strategy of Mutually Assured Destruction no longer factored in with a diverse enemy. The Taliban power and the Osama bin Laden legend and weaponry were all the responsibility of the Reagan administration. Thus, all three pieces of Middle East puzzle that haunts the West today were fostered and assisted during the administrations of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

George H.W. Bush's role in what was to become the second Iraqi war is fairly well known and discussed in Connections. The lessons of the first Gulf War, like the lessons for most wars, should have already been learned by reading the history of World War I. The First World War, with its incomplete conclusion, botched war treaty and unworkable peace solutions laid the foundation for the Second World War. The first Gulf War can draw many parallels with the ultimate lesson being that a war left unfinished will require more war. President Bush had plenty of reasons for ending the battles after 100 hours but none of those reasons hold up when one considers what occurred in the aftermath.

The fourth link in the chain brings Bill Clinton onto the scene. The eight years of the Clinton Administration are viewed by Clinton critiques as a series of missed opportunities, hesitations and meager responses in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Based on what occurred nine months after Clinton left office this assessment has to be considered somewhat accurate. In eight years Bill Clinton failed to capture, kill, or even weaken Osama bin Laden. In 1992 Saddam Hussein was a weakened dictator with a tenuous but tightening grip on power. In 2001 Saddam Hussein had consolidated his control of the country, had thwarted many international attempts to monitor and control his military activities, and had weakened the international resolve to contain him. For these reasons President Clinton's tenure should be viewed as a failure of action. Whether Bill Clinton was "obsessed with Osama bin Laden" or not is essentially irrelevant. If he was obsessed, he failed miserably. If he simply made an effort during a time of political controversy then he certainly didn't try hard enough. The bottom line is that he didn't stop him and this has to be the final judgement of Clinton's eight years.

The assessment of Clinton's failures; however, cannot be viewed in a vacuum. A look at the Republican Congress's actions during this time shows that they had even less of an obsession with terror than the President. Many of the "anti-terrorism" tools that would ultimately be part of the U.S. Patriot Act in 2001 were removed from the 1996 Anti-Terrorism Act by conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats. This included tightening airport security, tracking of bank wire transfers, the tracking of certain types of explosives, and the expanded use of wiretaps. Clinton's "meager response" to bin Laden 1998 was acceptable to Republicans back then. Both House Speaker Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Lott called Clinton's response "appropriate and just." In 1998 Senator John McCain criticized Clinton for focusing too much on bin Laden and not enough on North Korea, Mideast peace, and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Maybe Clinton was more obsessed than present day Republicans want to give him credit for.

A survey of the news from 1998 shows that if there was any "obsession" it was over Monica Lewinsky. If it is true that the President was preoccupied with events unrelated to international affairs, it is because the Republicans in Congress chose to make these events the primary focus. They clearly favored weakening the President. If President Clinton is to be criticized for failing to put enough attention into fighting terrorism, those distracting him have to be included in the assessment.

In early 2001 the Clinton security team provided the newly elected Bush administration with a plethora of intelligence about potential terrorist threats, including airline attacks. The Bush administration did little with this information so the justifiable criticism of the Clinton administration has to be carried over to the Bush administration as well. Viewing Clinton's actions or inactions in a bubble is simply a bad assessment of the chain of events. There is enough responsibility to go around on all sides of the political debate. Isolating one section to suit an ideological or political agenda does little to provide an accurate analysis of how the United States arrived at the 2003 decision to invade Iraq.

In 2004 the New York Times issued its "mia culpa" regarding its failure to adequately examine the facts leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Since the President and Congress were in unison supporting all the claims for war the only body that could independently question these claims was the media. In this role they failed miserably. Everything that the international media had perceived was simply ignored by the U.S. media. Even worse, so called journalists with their own agendas such as Judith Miller played an important role in distorting the evidence that ended up being used as justification for the war. Had the media done even a fraction of what an independent media is supposed to do the connections that produced the 2003 invasion would have been spelled out and the war would have taken on an entirely different complexion.

As this survey has shown, there is plenty of responsibility to go around for all the circumstances that produced the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The real problem with the assessments is that analysis has taken on a political agenda to a point that it ceases being analysis. Talk radio, the Internet, and even the now politically based news organizations all try to make their assessments through the prism of ideology. Most events do not lend themselves to this convenient pigeonholing. Sometimes it is necessary to strip away the political bias in order to get a clear picture of of events. This is clearly one of those occasions.