Srivatsa Kundurthy

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The 2003 invasion of Iraq remains one of the most debated and consequential U.S. foreign policy actions of the 21st century. To a public still reeling from the attacks of 9/11, the United States and its "Coalition of the Willing" framed the invasion as both an urgent security measure for disarming an unstable Iraq, and a benevolent effort to reinforce Western democratic principles. While these superficial explanations initially placated the public, with early opinion polling relaying strong support for the war, they severely underrepresented the depth and breadth of the calculations the United States made in planning and justifying the invasion, and misrepresent the true causes of the Iraq War (Smeltz, 2023).

The invasion of Iraq began on March 20th, 2003. The United States was the revisionist state, leading a coalition of 48 countries, of which Australia, Poland, and the United Kingdom provided armed forces that joined U.S. troops (Council on Foreign Relations, 2007). Key decision-makers on the American side included President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice; on the other side was the Iraqi Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, headed by Saddam Hussein (Miller Center, n.d.).

Iraq-U.S. relations had remained hostile following the 1991 Gulf War. President Clinton passed the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998, which formalized the U.S. objective to "remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq" through open support for democratic movements in the state; this act stopped far short of any military action, however (Iraq Liberation Act, 1998, Sec. 3). Following the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration adopted a much more assertive national security agenda: the 2002 National Security Strategy document outlined what would become the "Bush Doctrine", serving as a strong assertion of the United States' right to engage in preemptive military action against perceived threats (White House, 2002a). Armed with a new foreign policy approach, the United States intensified its rhetoric against Saddam Hussein's regime (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2003).

In October 2002, just weeks after publication of the 2002 National Security Strategy, Congress passed the Iraq Resolution, which formally authorized the use of military force in Iraq. President Bush declared the objective of the intervention as “regime change”, stating that “for 11 years, Saddam Hussein has ignored the United Nations and the free world…we don’t believe he is going to change” (White House, 2002b, para. 33). In their rhetoric, the Bush administration framed the Iraqi state as a revisionist threat to democracy, and argued that U.S. intervention was benevolent and would free the Iraqi people of a repressive regime.

Following the declaration of war, the invasion progressed rapidly via air and ground assaults. Baghdad fell by April 9th, 2003, and the U.S. declared victory over Hussein’s regime on April 15th. The U.S. then led Iraq’s political transition, initially through the Coalition Provisional Authority and subsequently via appointed transitional bodies such as the Iraqi Governing Council and the Iraqi Interim Government. Saddam Hussein was captured in December 2003, tried, and executed in December 2006 (Council on Foreign Relations, n.d.). Estimates of Iraqi civilian deaths are over 150,000 people, while the U.S. military suffered over 4,400 fatalities (Iraq Body Count, n.d.; U.S. Department of Defense, n.d.). Though Saddam Hussein was ousted from power, no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, and the invasion destabilized the nation and brought the region further into turmoil, undermining the stated objectives of the invasion (Lieberfeld, 2005).

The causes of the Iraq war have been subject to intense and sustained academic debate. There are several prevailing theories rooted in constructivism, liberalism, and diverse camps of realism that seek to explain the beginning of hostilities. Though these arguments have merit and stimulate meaningful discussion about the broader context of the war, this paper argues that offensive realism–a structural, neorealist theory advanced by John Mearsheimer–provides the most thorough and compelling framework for analyzing the cause of the war.

The tenets of offensive realism assert that the international system is anarchic, that all states possess offensive military capability, that no state can be certain about the intentions of others, that survival is the primary objective of great powers, and that these powers behave as rational actors navigating structural constraints (Mearsheimer, 2001).

Building on these baseline assumptions, offensive realism supports the argument that great powers will act aggressively to maximize hegemony and increase their share of power, striking temporary alliances when fruitful, but functioning primarily in their own self-interest within an international system that is devoid of counterbalancing forces. This paper argues that offensive realism best explains the cause of the Iraq War because it wholly accounts for U.S. behavior leading up to the unprovoked invasion, particularly when considering the United States’ newfound status as a unipolar hegemon after the fall of the Soviet Union, and the impact of 9/11 on U.S. foreign policy. Specifically, the theory best captures how the United States exploited the anarchic international system to pursue assertive action in Iraq, aiming to preserve its status as the sole global hegemon and reshape the balance of power in the Middle East to favor vested strategic interests.

The very first principle of offensive realism, as stated in *The Tragedy of Great Power Politics*, is that the international system is anarchic, meaning “independent states…have no central authority above them”, which Mearsheimer dubs the “911 problem” (Mearsheimer, 2001, p. 30–32).

Of course, international institutions like the United Nations exist, but offensive realists argue that these institutions lack genuine enforcement power. If the actions of such institutions are shown to be inconsequential in preventing conflict, then these institutions are effectively nonexistent within the international system.

Extending from this baseline expectation, if the international system is truly anarchic as offensive realism suggests, we would expect to observe two key behaviors. First, that great powers are able to unilaterally bypass international institutions when those institutions constrain security interests and second, that international organizations lack the effective enforcement mechanisms to prevent or punish unilateral action taken by powerful states. These behaviors are implied by offensive realism. Suppose for a contradiction that they are false: if great powers are unable to bypass international institutions, or if international institutions are able to punish and limit unilateral action, then interstate authorities indeed have genuine enforcement power, which contradicts the first axiom in offensive realism.

The 2003 Iraq War provides compelling evidence for both of these behaviors, demonstrating why offensive realism's anarchic principle offers the most powerful explanatory framework for understanding this conflict.

Indeed, in the months leading up to the invasion, the U.S. was at odds with NATO and the United Nations.

While the U.S. Congress had already passed a resolution authorizing the use of military force in Iraq, the United States sought a similar resolution within the United Nations Security Council in order to provide international credibility for the invasion.

One of the key arguments the United States was making to the U.N. was that Iraq secretly possessed WMDs, thereby posing a serious threat to world order. However, Hans Blix, head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), contradicted U.S. intelligence reports, stating that weapons inspections were in-progress without issue and that there was no compelling evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (White House, 2003a). Blix noted that key sites in Iraq had been inspected without incident, weakening the Bush administration's heated claims of an imminent threat.

This caused a rift within the U.N. Security Council, with France, Germany, and Russia pushing for continued inspections before escalation, while the U.K. and Spain opined that U.S. intelligence was sufficient to justify military intervention (CNN, 2003). Anticipating an ultimate no-vote, the U.S. withdrew the resolution entirely (Beaumont, 2008).

Likewise, the U.S. faced unprecedented resistance from traditional NATO allies. Notably, Canada declined participation in military action in Iraq, with Prime Minister Chrétien asserting that “if military action proceeds without a new resolution in the Security Council, Canada will not participate”; German opposition was firmer, with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder suggesting that a military intervention would risk “incalculable consequences for the global security architecture” (Fiorino, 2016).

Amidst this lack of institutional support, the U.S. subverted both NATO and the United Nations entirely, assembling the “Coalition of the Willing”, which was a consortium of 49 disparate countries that lent their ideological support for the invasion of Iraq (Council on Foreign Relations, 2007).

Via this coalition, the U.S. was able to forge multifaceted support for the objectives of the invasion. Traditionally, such stamps of legitimacy are privileged grants from the United Nations, but this case illustrates the Achilles heel of interstate institutions: the fundamental power of the United Nations is sourced from the confidence and participation of its strongest membership. When great powers like the United States withdraw that confidence, the United Nations is unable to prevent unilateral decision-making. Because the institution was inconsequential in preventing conflict, it is effectively nonexistent in the international system. Moreover, beyond the tainted legacy of the hasty Iraq invasion, the U.S. faced no extrinsic consequences for subverting the United Nations and NATO.

The Iraq War thus provides compelling confirmation of offensive realism's anarchic principle through both expected behaviors. First, the United States unequivocally pursued its security interests by invading Iraq despite substantial institutional opposition, demonstrating that great powers prioritize their perceived security needs over institutional constraints. Second, the complete inability of international institutions to prevent or meaningfully punish this unilateral action confirms their ineffectiveness as central authorities. The UN Security Council, despite its formal powers, could not halt the invasion, and NATO's opposition proved ineffective.

Alternative theoretical frameworks struggle to explain U.S. actions adequately. The framework of liberal institutionalism would argue that institutions such as the United Nations effectively constrain state behavior through rules and norms, yet the ability of the U.S. subvert the U.N. and assemble an alternative coalition that violated accepted procedures, demonstrates the powerlessness of such institutions. While constructivism emphasizes how state behavior is shaped by identities and international norms, it struggles to explain the 2003 Iraq invasion, which defied global normative opposition and lacked broad institutional legitimacy; U.S. policymakers acted despite widespread resistance, revealing that material power concerns outweighed social constructs.

By contrast, beyond simply matching predicted behavior, offensive realism provides a deeper explanatory framework–one that accounts not only for what states do in an anarchic system, but how rational states perceive and act upon that anarchy. The fifth bedrock assumption that John Mearsheimer makes in *The Tragedy of Great Power Politics* is that states are “rational actors” that are “aware of their external environment…and think strategically about how to survive in it” (Mearsheimer, 2001, p. 31). Given that the external environment is an anarchic international system, offensive realism allows us to couple these two assumptions to make a critical argument that aligns directly with the stipulations of the Bush Doctrine: not only did the United States operate in an anarchic environment devoid of higher authority, but it did so while fully cognizant of this lack of structural controls, and strategically exploited these conditions to pursue unilateral, power-maximizing action.

To illustrate, the 2002 National Security Strategy bluntly asserted that the United States would “not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise \[the\] right of self-defense” (White House, 2002a, Chapter 3). Clearly, the U.S. anticipated opposition from institutions, but rejected the authority of an international consensus in influencing U.S. objectives. Moreover, this statement encapsulates the self-help logic that is inherent to offensive realism: the international system is anarchic, and the U.S. had to secure its interest using its own capabilities (Mearsheimer, 2001). In fact, the plan to assemble the Coalition of the Willing was not reactive to the lack of support from the United Nations, but rather premeditated with the intention of flouting international order. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice acknowledged in February 2003 that “if the Security Council is unable to act, then we will have to act with a coalition of the willing” (White House, 2003b, para. 16). This approach reveals that the United States was not only prepared to circumvent international hierarchy but confident that it could do so without facing meaningful institutional consequences, and convinced that it had to do so to achieve self-preservation within the anarchic system–all core principles of the theory of offensive realism.

The United States went to war with full knowledge that the international system was powerless to stop it. It anticipated resistance from the U.N. and NATO, built its own coalition ahead of time, and moved forward without consequence. Thus, offensive realism prevails because it allows us to reason about the fact that the international system is anarchic, and how the United States takes advantage of this anarchy to orchestrate a preemptive war to secure regional hegemony; no other theory allows us jointly reason about both behaviors that the United States exhibited.

A broader argument of offensive realism that provides critical insight into the Iraq War is the framework’s assertion that states seek to maximize their power beyond security requirements. As Mearsheimer (2001) argues, “the overriding goal of each state is to maximize its share of world power, which means gaining power at the expense of other states” (p. 2).

We can derive two behaviors supported by this axiom, once again justified by contradiction, and test how these behaviors apply to the Iraq invasion. First, great powers will use force against weaker states if they calculate that doing so will enhance their relative power or geopolitical position. Second, great powers will operate in the interest of hegemonic goals, not just immediate security needs, and will mask and shift justifications for such objectives if needed. Indeed, Iraq was not only a much weaker state than the United States, but also significantly weaker than how the U.S. portrayed it. Critically, pre-war intelligence had already suggested that Iraq's WMD capabilities were minimal or nonexistent, but this information was downplayed by senior officials. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found in its 2004 report that key judgments in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) were overstated by the underlying intelligence, and that dissenting views from agencies such as the Department of Energy were omitted from final assessments (U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 2004). It also highlighted how senior policymakers selectively used intelligence that aligned with their policy goals, disregarding contradictory assessments. The Committee’s findings made clear that, while flawed intelligence was part of the issue, there was a willingness on behalf of leadership to only react to signals that warned of Iraq as an imminent threat: the intelligence process was weaponized to shape a narrative for war.

This shows that U.S. leadership clearly lied and misrepresented their objectives in Iraq. As such, we explore a two-pronged hegemonic strategy that drove U.S. leadership towards the invasion. These aspects align closely with the power maximization argument and offensive realism in general.

First, the United States sought to signal military dominance and willingness to fight following the humiliation of the 9/11 attacks. The attacks revealed American vulnerability, and triggered a desire within the Bush administration to reassert global leadership through the use of decisive force. According to Bob Woodward’s *Plan of Attack*, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld emphasized that the U.S. needed to “demonstrate what U.S. military power can do,” not just to remove Saddam Hussein, but to deter other adversaries by setting a precedent (Hertzberg, 2004). The invasion was very much performative–an effort to restore credibility to American military might after the trauma of 9/11.

It is notable, however, that the events of 9/11 simply surfaced dormant neoconservative ambitions, as articulated by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). As early as 1998, PNAC members–including future Bush administration officials Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle–advocated for the use of American military strength to shape the strategic environment. In their January 26, 1998, letter to President Clinton, they asserted: “We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power” (Project for the New American Century, 1998). This outright call for regime change reflects deeply hegemonic perspectives, particularly that stability required preemptive occupation and demonstrative uses of force. PNAC's 1997 Statement of Principles further emphasized this stance and coupled it with exceptionalist views, stating that America had to “accept responsibility for [its] unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to…security,...prosperity, and [American] principles” (Militarist Monitor, 2019). The 9/11 attacks simply hastened a deep-rooted neoconservative ambition to make an example of Iraq and engage in a spectacle of military might. This performance of strength aligns precisely with offensive realism, which holds that great powers use war not only for territorial or material gain, but also to shape perceptions of strength and willpower. Mearsheimer contends that deterrence and reputation are critical components of power politics, especially in an anarchic system where no central authority enforces agreements. By invading Iraq swiftly and unilaterally, the United States aimed to dissuade state and non-state actors alike from challenging American hegemony, which in turn is a step towards power maximization.

The second hegemonic objective was the strategic consolidation of influence over the Middle East. Iraq occupies a geographically pivotal position, sharing borders with Iran, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. It also possesses the second-largest proven oil reserves in the world, estimated at over 112 billion barrels in 2004, making it an unparalleled access point for shaping geopolitics in the region (Kumins, 2004). Energy was indeed a latent motivation for many leaders, with U.S. senior leadership expressing strong interest in oil and often specifically notating its presence in Iraq. In a 1999 speech, Dick Cheney, then CEO of Halliburton, stated bluntly that “the Middle East, with two-thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies” (Cassidy, 2004). As such, Iraq was the “right” weak state for the United States to insert itself into the region and reap resource-related benefits. As further evidence of the United States’ premeditated interest in Iraqi oil, Iraq’s postwar oil sector was quickly opened to Western firms, and American companies such as Halliburton and ExxonMobil were awarded major contracts, often under noncompetitive terms (Chulov, 2009). While the war was not launched solely for oil, control over energy infrastructure and transit routes offered the United States a means to influence global markets and constrain the strategic autonomy of rising powers such as China, which depends heavily on Gulf oil. Offensive realism holds that great powers seek influence in regions of strategic significance, particularly those rich in resources and proximate to potential rival powers. Iraq checked both boxes, offering both material leverage and geographic centrality in a volatile but resource-rich arena. From the perspective of offensive realism, such forward-looking moves reflect a hegemon’s drive to control strategic nodes before others can.

In short, both derived behaviors are clearly supported by the case of the 2003 Iraq War. The U.S. targeted Iraq, a significantly weakened state, despite internal intelligence assessments showing it posed no imminent threat–demonstrating opportunistic use of force for strategic gain. Simultaneously, the war served deeper hegemonic goals: projecting military dominance after 9/11, embedding U.S. power in a resource-rich region, and securing leverage over global energy markets. Public justifications focused on WMDs, but internal documents and neoconservative strategy papers reveal longstanding intentions to reshape the region and maintain U.S. hegemony. Therefore, the invasion of Iraq in 2003 offers compelling empirical support for the offensive realist claim that great powers seek to maximize their power, not merely ensure their survival. Other theories fall short in adequately capturing and explaining U.S. behavior in Iraq. For example, defensive realism claims states seek only enough power to ensure security. But Iraq posed no imminent threat, and the war introduced significant costs and regional instability. A purely defensive actor would have avoided such a risky, unnecessary war. The U.S. acted not to preserve the status quo, but to expand influence, contradicting defensive realism’s core assumption.

Likewise, classical realism attributes state behavior to human nature–specifically, the inherent lust for power among political leaders. This perspective seems convincing for this conflict, as figures like Cheney and Rumsfeld acted ambitiously and are frequently accused of war-mongering. However, this view is reductive, as it overlooks the deep structural context of the war that made it feasible and attractive. Ultimately, the Iraq War was a result of systemic opportunity: the United States sought to maximize regional power, and several facets of government worked as structural units to incite the conflict. The invasion was not impulsive or emotional. It was a calculated move within an anarchic system in which the United States was the unipolar hegemon, which is a type of action explainable only through offensive realism.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq, though veiled in humanitarian rhetoric, was fundamentally a strategic maneuver grounded in the logic of power maximization and consciously exploitative of the anarchic international system. Through the lens of offensive realism, the invasion emerges exactly as what it was. Not a reckless overreach, or an emotional reaction to 9/11, or some momentary failure in otherwise powerful interstate bodies, but rather a calculated effort by the United States to consolidate its unipolar dominance in a world without counterbalancing constraints. By exploiting the anarchic structure of the international system, bypassing institutional opposition, and targeting a militarily weakened adversary, the United States acted in accordance with Mearsheimer’s core assumptions: rational great powers, when faced with no credible deterrent, will pursue hegemony.

Alternative theories of international relations, including defensive realism, classical realism, constructivism, and liberal institutionalism, fail to account for the full scope and strategic logic behind the war. They overlook the extent to which the U.S. acted not to preserve the status quo, but to reshape it. Offensive realism, by contrast, captures both the behavior and the mindset of American leadership: aware of their unmatched power, unbound by institutional constraints, and strengthened by the absence of other powerful states, they chose war to secure long-term dominance at the expense of other nations. The Iraq War thus stands as a defining case of hegemonic behavior in the post-Cold War era, and is only wholly understood through the lens of offensive realism.

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