Evaluating the War in Iraq
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Imagine that you are watching a daytime soap opera in the comfort of your home. One of the leading ladies is murdered, but nobody in the small town of Middlebury knows who murdered the woman. Just as in the suspenseful drama of a soap opera episode, the American public wants to know who or what is responsible for what occurs in international relations. Similar to detectives on a TV show, political experts gather evidence and attempt to understand why an event occurs. In examining the conflict in Iraq, political experts attempt to identify "causal" factors. The underlying task is to examine why the United States went to war in Iraq. The causes for the conflict in Iraq will be analyzed through three levels of analysis: system-level analysis, state-level analysis, and individual-level analysis.
First, the causes of the conflict in Iraq will be analyzed by system-level analysis. The system-level study of international politics states that factors external to nations and the international political environment determine how nations and transnational actors on the world stage interact. To determine the causes of the war in Iraq, the polarity of the global political stage will be examined...