USAd Iraq War Analysis

Ideally the U.S. and Iraq would have never went to war because generally speaking states prefer most outcomes over war because it exhausts resources and the costs are too high. The interests of the U.S. and Saddam Hussein played a major role in the Bush administration declaring war on Iraq but they alone did not explain why there was war. The role of institutions and the interesting interactions of both the U.S. help explain why in fact there was bargain failure and the Bush administration declared war on Iraq. A conflict of interests in not solely responsible for a war to start but it definitely was one of the necessary factors in the Iraq war. The need for the United States to protect its national security in the United States and Iraqs

Saddam Hussein played a game of cat and mouse with the United Nations in which he kept hiding the so called WMD to perpetuate him actually have such powerful weapons. The fact that Sudan Hussein was not denying the claims of having weapons of mass destruction(WMD) led the U.S. to take this as a possible threat to its national security. Iraq also had domestic security interests led by Saddam Hussein. Hussein was concerned of getting attacked by Iran so he pumped up the perception that he had WMD to make his country look strong. These interests were conflicting because the idea of Iraq having WMD scared the U.S. and on top of that made them stronger in bargaining interactions. The ideal outcome for the U.S. was not doing anything and Hussein steps down from power anyway. The ideal outcome for Hussein was to stay in power and not go to war. This means that both parties could have still used a bargaining model to settle the differences without war. Therefore interests of the U.S. and Saddam Hussein do not tell us enough to explain America's decision to go to war against

Institutions are bodies that can set out rules that can influence interactions. The United Nations played a big role in the Iraq-US war because the United States was hoping to get support from leaders in the United Nations to go to war with Iraq. Also as stated earlier, the game of cat and mouse between the UN and Iraq helped perpetuate Iraq as a powerful threat that could threaten world powers. These two instances led to many countries such as the United Kingdom, France, and Japan. With this much support the U.S. was able to invade Iraq and the decisions was more logical as they had way more backing. This is known as a coalition, an army of states that agreed to invade Iraq and dethrone Saddam Hussein. Without the the UN, the U.S. would have still been able to go to war but without the support, it would look like the U.S. was the agitator and therefore be more