United States and Allied Unilateral Intervention in Iraq

American relations with Iraq have long been tainted from the initial Gulf War in August 1990 resulting in a Western military victory and multiple sanctions placed on the Saddam Hussein regime that weakened Baghdad’s economy and the provision of its services. The Ba’ath Party remained susceptible to internal revolts from the Kurdish and Shiite communities. The United States under the Clinton administration desired the removal of Saddam in a non-coercive manner, but the Bush administration planned a robust invasion. The invasion was sought on the premise that the Saddam Hussein regime held a Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) program and stockpile weapons; was supporting al-Qaeda; and that the WMD could be possessed by a transnational terrorist organization. Due to Iraq’s war with Iran and internal opposition, Saddam did not clearly indicate whether a WMD program and weapons stockpiles were obsolete to deter the threat from within and its neighboring rival. The United States wanted legal backing from the United Nations Security Council and thus weapons inspectors were deployed but they did not find any conclusive evidence of a WMD program or possession of nuclear or damaging chemical weapons. Without permission from the Security Council, the United States formed a coalition of willing states to swiftly invade Iraq and commence with the de-Ba’athification process. However, sectarian and ethnic violence intensified, the crime rate became one of the highest in the world, unemployment increased, and the Islamic State filled the security and service vacuum left by the Iraqi government and new police force. From an Afro-communitarian perspective, the foreign armed intervention in Iraq was illegitimate and the ousting of the Ba’ath Party and dynamics of American-driven statebuilding resulted in a less harmonious state of affairs.