Lew Rockwell why the neocons started the 2003 Iraq War

Why did the United States get involved? 

One of the key reasons was pressure from a group that has come to exercise more and more influence on American foreign policy — the neocons. Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, and a number of others were not satisfied with American foreign policy. They disclosed their plans in an important book by Kristol and Lawrence Kaplan, The War Over Iraq: Saddam’s Tyranny and America’s Mission, published in 2003. These neocon authors said that foreign policy must avoid “realism.” The realists favored working within the balance-of-power tradition of European diplomacy. “This in turn led to the realists’ key recommendation: A state must limit itself to the protection of its ‘vital interests,’ lest it disrupt the balance of power.” 

A foreign policy realist will not hesitate to ally, if conditions require it, with an undemocratic state, but this strikes at the heart of Kaplan and Kristol’s ideas.  The key to their approach is that America should embark on a worldwide crusade for democracy.  To do so, they claim, will result in a world at peace.

They contend that the “strategic value of democracy is reflected in a truth of international politics: Democracies rarely, if ever, wage war against one another.”  Given this premise, isn’t the conclusion obvious?  If only we establish democracy everywhere, the millennium is at hand. 

Democracy should be spread worldwide, but one area is the most important for the neocons — the Middle East. Kaplan and Kristol hate all of the political systems of the Arab world, and they propose to replace them: “There is today not a single Arab state that qualifies as a democracy. ...  But promoting democracy in the Middle East is not a matter of national egoism.  It has become a matter of national well-being, even survival.”

In particular, the royalist government of Saudi Arabia must go.  Why not replace it as an American ally with a democratic Iraq?  “Iraq’s experience of liberal democratic rule in turn could increase the pressure already being felt by Teheran’s mullahs. . . .  Iraq could even replace Saudi Arabia as the key American ally and source of oil in the region.” 

America should therefore strike at Saddam Hussein — remember, they wrote before the invasion began.  Incredibly, Kaplan and Kristol predicted that the Iraqis would welcome us with open arms.  Then we could start preventive wars against other dictatorships.

~ Lew Rockwell, "The War System," Against the State (2014)

2014