Why Did the United States Invade Iraq? The Debate at 20 Years – Texas National Security Review
1 Melvyn Leffler, Confronting Saddam Hussein: George W. Bush and the Invasion of Iraq (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023); and Samuel Helfont, Iraq Against the World: Saddam, America, and the Post-Cold War Order (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023). See also Marjorie Gallelli, Its Been Twenty Years Time for Historians to Turn to Iraq, Passport 54, no. 1 (April 2023): 63, https://shafr.org/system/files/passport-04-2023-last-word.pdf.
2 Leffler, Confronting Saddam Hussein; Frederic Bozo, A History of the Iraq Crisis: France, the United States, and Iraq, 1991-2003 (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2016); Alexandre Debs and Nuno Monteiro, Known Unknowns: Power Shifts, Uncertainty, and War, International Organization 68, no. 1 (Winter 2014): 131, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43282094; Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay, America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2005); Peter Hahn, Missions Accomplished?: The United States and Iraq Since World War I (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); Hakan Tunc, What Was It All About After All? The Causes of the Iraq War, Contemporary Security Policy 26, no. 5 (2005): 33555, https://doi.org/10.1080/12523260500190492; Steve Yetiv, The Iraq War of 2003: Why Did the United States Decide to Invade, in The Middle East and the United States: History, Politics, and Ideologies, 6th ed., ed. David Lesch and Mark Haas (New York: Routledge, 2018), 25374; and Ron Suskind, The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside Americas Pursuit of Its Enemies since 9/11 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006).
3 Ahsan Butt, Why Did the United States Invade Iraq in 2003? Security Studies 28, no. 2 (2019): 25085, https://doi.org/10.1080.09636412.2019.1551567; Andrew Bacevich, Americas War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History (New York: Random House, 2016); Jeffrey Record, Wanting War: Why the Bush Administration Invaded Iraq (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2011); Frank Harvey, Explaining the Iraq War: Counterfactual Theory, Logic, and Evidence (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012); John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2007); Paul Pillar, Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy: Iraq, 9/11, and Misguided Reform (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011); Patrick Porter, Iraq: A Liberal War After All, International Politics 55, no. 2 (March 2018): 33448, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41311-017-0115-z; Lloyd Gardner, The Long Road to Baghdad: A History of U.S. Foreign Policy from the 1970s to the Present (New York: New Press, 2008); Gary Dorrien, Imperial Designs: Neoconservatism and the New Pax Americana (New York: Routledge, 2004); Stephen Kinzer, Overthrow: Americas Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq (New York: Times Books, 2006); Stephen Wertheim, Iraq and the Pathologies of Primacy, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2023, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/iraq-and-pathologies-primacy; Michael Desch, Americas Liberal Illiberalism: The Ideological Origins of Overreaction in U.S. Foreign Policy, International Security 32, no. 3 (Winter 2007/2008): 743, https://www.jstor.org/stable/30130517; Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry, Realism, Liberalism, and the Iraq War, Survival 59, no. 4 (2017): 726, https://doi.org/10.1080/00396338.2017.1349757; Jane Cramer and Edward Duggan, In Pursuit of Primacy: Why the United States Invaded Iraq, in Why Did the United States Invade Iraq? ed. Jane Cramer and Trevor Thrall (New York: Routeledge, 2011), 20145.
4 Major primary source collections that scholars have drawn on to analyze U.S. decision-making on Iraq include the Digital National Security Archive, the Donald Rumsfeld Papers, U.S. Intelligence in the Middle East 1945-2009, and the British Iraq Inquiry, also known as the Chilcott Report.
5 Robert Jervis, Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010).
6 On Iraqi foreign policy and politics in this era, see Helfont, Iraq Against the World; Lisa Blaydes, State of Repression: Iraq Under Saddam Hussein (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018); David Woods et al., Iraqi Perspectives Project: A View of Operation Iraqi Freedom from Saddams Senior Leadership (Norfolk, VA: United States Joint Forces Command, 2006). On U.N. weapons inspections, see Malfrid Braut-Hegghammer, Cheaters Dilemma: Iraq, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the Path to War, International Security 45, no. 1 (Summer 2020): 5189, https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00382; Gregory Koblentz, Saddam Versus the Inspectors: The Impact of Regime Security on the Verification of Iraqs WMD Disarmament, Journal of Strategic Studies 41, no. 2 (April 2018): 372409, https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2016.1224764. On the role of U.S. allies and the United Nations on the road to war, see David Malone, The International Struggle Over Iraq: Politics in the U.N. Security Council, 1980-2005 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006); and Alexander Thompson, Channels of Power: The U.N. Security Council and U.S. Statecraft in Iraq (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010).
7 For example, see Benjamin Miller, Explaining Changes in U.S. Grand Strategy: 9/11, the Rise of Offensive Liberalism, and the War in Iraq, Security Studies 19, no. 1 (2010): 2665, https://doi.org/10.1080/09636410903546426.
8 Leffler, Confronting Saddam, 248.
9 Robert Jervis, Explaining the War in Iraq, in Why Did the United States Invade Iraq? ed. Jane Cramer and Trevor Thrall (New York: Routeledge, 2011), 33.
10 Bozo, History of the Iraq Crisis, 9. See also Tunc, Causes of the Iraq War, 336.
11 Leffler, Confronting Saddam, 2840; Jervis, Explaining the War, 30; and Yetiv, Iraq War of 2003, 40001.
12 Leffler, Confronting Saddam, 5160; and Hahn, Missions Accomplished, 14243.
13 Leffler, Confronting Saddam, 91. See also Jervis, Explaining the War, 34; Debs and Monteiro, Known Unknowns, 34, 17; Tunc, Causes of the Iraq War, 339; Yetiv, Iraq War of 2003, 398408; and Philip Gordon and Jeremy Shapiro, Allies at War: America, Europe, and the Crisis Over Iraq (New York: McGraw Hill, 2004), 83
14 Leffler, Confronting Saddam, 15758; and Daalder and Lindsay, America Unbound, 12023.
15 George W. Bush, Decision Points (New York: Crown, 2010), 228. See also: Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown: A Memoir (New York: Sentinel, 2011), 435; Douglas Feith, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism (New York: Harper Collins, 2008), 5152; and Richard Cheney, In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir (New York: Threshold Editions, 2011), 369.
16 Jervis, Why Intelligence Fails, 23; and Leffler, Confronting Saddam, 85, 167.
17 Interview with Condoleezza Rice, CNN, Sept. 8, 2002, https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/le/date/2002-09-08/segment/00.
18 Daalder and Lindsay, America Unbound, 11628; and Yetiv, Iraq War of 2003, 40102.
19 Leffler, Confronting Saddam, 98. See also Jervis, Explaining the War, 30; and Debs and Monteiro, Known Unknowns, 26.
20 Tunc, Causes of the Iraq War, 342.
21 Leffler, Confronting Saddam, 98.
22 Leffler, Confronting Saddam, 252.
23 Leffler, Confronting Saddam, 252. See also Hahn, Missions Accomplished, 143.
24 Jervis, Explaining the War, 31, 34.
25 Melvyn Leffler, The Foreign Policies of the George W. Bush Administration: Memoirs, History, Legacy, Diplomatic History 37, no. 2 (April 2013): 190216, https://www.jstor.org/stable/44254516.
26 Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (New York: Crown Publishers, 2011), 121.
27 Bush, Decision Points, 229.
28 Rumsfeld, Known Unknowns, 42224; Rice, No Higher Honor, 14749; and Feith, War and Decision, 6.
29 Bush, Decision Points, 223; Rice, No Higher Honor, 147; Feith, War and Decision, 181.
30 Joseph Stieb, Confronting the Iraq War: Melvyn Leffler, George Bush, and the Problem of Trusting Your Sources, War on the Rocks, Jan. 30, 2023, https://warontherocks.com/2023/01/confronting-the-iraq-war-melvyn-leffler-george-bush-and-the-problem-of-trusting-your-sources/.
31 Scholars in the realist-hegemony school include: Butt, Invade Iraq, 284; Wertheim, Pathologies of Primacy; Gardner, Long Road, 23; Dorrien, Imperial Designs, 18182; Deudney and Ikenberry, Realism, Liberalism, 89; Cramer and Duggan, Pursuit of Primacy, 20103; Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival: Americas Quest for Global Dominance (New York: MacMillan, 2007), 1116; and Steven Hurst, The United States and Iraq Since 1979 (Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press, 2009), 1920.
32 Butt, Invade Iraq, 251.
33 Butt, Invade Iraq, 271.
34 Butt, Invade Iraq, 25758, 272.
35 Wertheim, Pathologies of Primacy.
36 Deudney and Ikenberry, Realism, Liberalism, 8.
37 Record, Wanting War, 2425. Record explicitly aligns his argument with the realist school of international relations.
38 James Bamford, A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of Americas Intelligence Agencies (New York: Doubleday, 2004); Wertheim, Pathologies of Power; Kinzer, Overthrow, 292; Gardner, Long Road, 4; and Cramer and Duggan, Pursuit of Primacy, 203.
39 Butt, Invade Iraq, 253; Harvey, Explaining the Iraq War, 140; Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival, 14041; Deudney and Ikenberry, Realism, Liberalism, 18; and Cramer and Duggan, Pursuit of Primacy, 23037.
40 Walt, Good Intentions, 13, 5464; Andrew Bacevich, The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2020) 11011; and Patrick Porter, The False Promise of Liberal Order (Medford, MA: Polity Press, 2020), 112.
41 Walt, Good Intentions, 2532; John Mearsheimer, Imperial by Design, National Interest, no. 11 (January/February 2011): 1619, https://www.jstor.org/stable/42897726; Bacevich, War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History (New York: Random House, 2016), 35863; Desch, Liberal Illiberalism, 79; and Miller, Offensive Liberalism, 3537.
42 Bacevich, Age of Illusions, 114; Record, Wanting War, 4952; and John Mearsheimer, The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018), 15051.
43 On oil motives, see Michael Klare, Blood For Oil, in Iraq and Elsewhere, in Why Did the United States Invade Iraq? ed. Jane Cramer and Trevor Thrall (New York: Routledge, 2011), 129145; and Hurst, United States and Iraq, 29. On the Israeli alliance as a motive, see Mearsheimer and Walt, Israel Lobby, 25355. Michael MacDonald effectively rebuts the arguments that oil and Israel were core motives for the Iraq War in Overreach: Delusions of Regime Change in Iraq (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014), 2426.
44 Walt, Good Intentions, 76, 110; Porter, A Liberal War, 346; and MacDonald, Overreach, 36.
45 Porter, A Liberal War, 34042; Walt, Good Intentions, 6576; and Pillar, Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy, 2430, 5963.
46 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, The White House, September 2002, introduction, https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/63562.pdf. For first-hand testimony of Bushs commitment to democracy in Iraq, see Natan Sharansky, The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror (New York: Public Affairs, 2004), 23944.
47 Porter, A Liberal War, 33942; Desch, Liberal Illiberalism, 2529; Eric Heinze, The New Utopianism: Liberalism, American Foreign Policy, and the War in Iraq, Journal of International Political Theory 4, no. 1 (April 2008): 11617, https://doi.org/10.3366/E1755088208000116.
48 George W. Bush, George Bushs Speech to the American Enterprise Institute, The Guardian, Feb. 27, 2003, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/feb/27/usa.iraq2.
49 MacDonald, Overreach, 3946.
50 Mearsheimer, Great Delusion, 154.
51 Bacevich, Age of Illusions, 11013; and Bacevich, Greater Middle East, 24043.
52 Porter, False Promise, 11213. For similar claims, see Pillar, Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy, 18; MacDonald, Overreach, 37; and Dorrien, Imperial Designs, 181.
53 Barton Gellman, Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency (New York: Penguin, 2007), 232; Dorrien, Imperial Designs, 13; and Daalder and Lindsay, America Unbound, 1516.
54 Gardner, Long Road; and Bacevich, Greater Middle East.
55 Excerpts from 1992 Draft Defense Planning Guidance, Frontline, 1992, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/etc/wolf.html.
56 Scholars who cite the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance include Bacevich, Greater Middle East, 362; Butt, Invade Iraq, 273; and Wertheim, Pathologies of Primacy.
57 Joseph Stieb, The Regime Change Consensus: Iraq in American Politics, 1990-2003 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 16061; and Project for a New American Century Statement of Principles, in The Iraq Papers, ed. John Ehrenberg et al. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 1920.
58 Record, Wanting War, 15. See also Gardner, Long Road, 12630; Butt, Invade Iraq, 251; Dorrien, Imperial Designs, 18182; Bamford, Pretext for War, 423; and MacDonald, Overreach, 35.
59 George Tenet, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA (New York: Harper Collins, 2007), 30508, 322.
60 Scott McLellan, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washingtons Culture of Deception (New York: Public Affairs, 2008), xiii. See also Richard Clarke: Against All Enemies: Inside Americas War on Terror (New York: Free Press, 2004), 3032.
61 Michael Mazarr, Leap of Faith: Hubris, Negligence, and Americas Greatest Foreign Policy Tragedy (New York: Public Affairs, 2019), 40607; Justin Vaisse, Neoconservatism: The Biography of a Movement (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 1417; and Robert Draper, To Start at War: How the Bush Administration Took America Into Iraq (New York: Penguin, 2021).
62 Stieb, Regime Change Consensus, 113.
63 Pillar, Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy, 41. See also Butt, Invade Iraq, 25557.
64 Pillar, Intelligence in U.S. Foreign Policy, 1342; Cramer and Thrall, Pursuit of Primacy, 20407; and Bamford, Pretext for War, 26970.
65 Desch, Liberal Illiberalism, 9.
66 Christian Alfonsi, Circle in the Sand: Why We Went Back to Iraq (New York: Doubleday, 2006); Samuel Helfont, The Gulf Wars Aftermath: Dilemmas, Missed Opportunities, and the Post-Cold War Order Undone, Texas National Security Review 4, no. 2 (Spring 2021): 2547, https://tnsr.org/2021/02/the-gulf-wars-afterlife-dilemmas-missed-opportunities-and-the-post-cold-war-order-undone/; and Stieb, The Regime Change Consensus, 411.
67 The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, Public Law 338, 105th Cong., 2nd sess., Oct. 31, 1998.
68 Helfont, Iraq Against the World, 110.
69 For scholars who call the Iraq War a tragedy, see Mazarr, Leap of Faith, 11; and Leffler, Confronting Saddam Hussein, 252. For scholars who call it a blunder, see Stieb, Regime Change Consensus, 1; and Wertheim, Pathologies of Primacy.
70 Scholars who emphasize continuity include Gardner, Long Road, 2; and John Lewis Gaddis, Surprise, Security, and the American Experience (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 8091. Scholars who stress discontinuity include Daalder and Lindsay, America Unbound, 12223; and Andrew Bacevich, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (New York: MacMillan, 2008), 7475.
71 George W. Bush, Remarks at the United Nations General Assembly, White House Archives, Sept. 12, 2002, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020912-1.html.
72 Bush, Decision Points, 22930; and Leffler, Confronting Saddam, 110
73 Leffler, Confronting Saddam, 109.
74 Leffler, Confronting Saddam, 94, 120, 16064. See also Gordon and Shapiro, Allies at War, 9698.
75 Leffler, Confronting Saddam, 160.
76 Leffler, Confronting Saddam, 184, 191. See also Draper, Start a War, 181.
77 Harvey, Explaining the Iraq War, 7.
78 Debs and Monteiro, Known Unknowns, 34. See also Draper, Start a War, 181; Todd Purdum, A Time of Our Choosing: Americas War in Iraq (New York: Times Books, 2004), 4663; and Anthony Lake, Two Cheers for Bargaining Theory: Assessing Rationalist Explanations of the Iraq War, International Security 35, no. 3 (Winter 2010/2011): 752, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40981251.
79 Bush, Decision Points, 229.
80 Bush, Decision Points, 24445; Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, 442; Rice, No Higher Honor, 181; and Feith, War and Decision, 223.
81 Rice, No Higher Honor, 18687.
82 Mazarr, Leap of Faith, 113. See also John Prados, The Iraq War-Part II: Was There Even a Decision? National Security Archive, Oct. 1, 2010, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB328/index.htm; and Mark Danner, ed., The Secret Way to War: The Downing Street Memo and the Iraq Wars Buried History (New York: New York Review of Books, 2006).
83 Mazarr, Leap of Faith, 222.
84 Mazarr, Leap of Faith, 3, 21821; and Stieb, Regime Change Consensus, 21416.
85 Mazarr, Leap of Faith, 245-246; and Prados, Even a Decision?
86 Mazarr, Leap of Faith, 9.
87 Mazarr, Leap of Faith, 292.
88 Stieb, Regime Change Consensus, 23640.
89 Butt, Invade Iraq, 251.
90 Prados, Even a Decision?; and Richard Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009), 213.
91 Mazarr, Leap of Faith, 238.
92 Prominent works that skip coercive diplomacy include Bacevich, Greater Middle East; and Mearsheimer and Walt, Israel Lobby; Record, Wanting War.
93 William Burns, How We Tried to Slow the Rush to War in Iraq, Politico, March 13, 2019, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/03/13/bill-burns-back-channel-book-excerpt-iraq-225731/.
94 Thanks to Theo Milonopoulos for this insight about future paths for Iraq scholarship.
95 Report of the Iraq Inquiry, House of Commons, July 6, 2016, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-report-of-the-iraq-inquiry.
96 Leffler, Confronting Saddam, 10304.
97 Butt, Invade Iraq, 279.
98 Butt, Invade Iraq, 27980; and Mazarr, Leap of Faith, 153.
99 Patrick Porter, Blunder: Britains War in Iraq (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 25, 20.
100 Vaisse, Neoconservatism, 12, 221. Vaisse also calls neoconservatives democratic globalists.
Continue reading here:
Why Did the United States Invade Iraq? The Debate at 20 Years - Texas National Security Review
- Trump is repeating the mistakes of Iraq in Venezuela | Mohamad Bazzi - The Guardian - January 14th, 2026 [January 14th, 2026]
- Exiled gangland boss Kazem Hamad linked to Victorias tobacco wars arrested in Iraq - The Guardian - January 14th, 2026 [January 14th, 2026]
- 'Number one target' tobacco kingpin Kazem Hamad arrested in Iraq - Australian Broadcasting Corporation - January 14th, 2026 [January 14th, 2026]
- One of the worlds most dangerous men captured in Iraq - New York Post - January 14th, 2026 [January 14th, 2026]
- Is Iraq About to Make Its Biggest Geopolitical Pivot in Years - Crude Oil Prices Today | OilPrice.com - January 14th, 2026 [January 14th, 2026]
- Iran Joins Venezuela, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Russia, and More as Canada Issues its Harshest Level 4 Travel Warning amid Rapidly Escalating Regional... - January 14th, 2026 [January 14th, 2026]
- No resumption of Irans gas supplies to Iraq is expected soon - The Arab Weekly - January 14th, 2026 [January 14th, 2026]
- Alleged tobacco kingpin Kazem Kaz Hamad has been arrested in Iraq what happens next? - The Conversation - January 14th, 2026 [January 14th, 2026]
- Iran Cant Dominate the Middle East Without Iraq - The Globe Post - January 14th, 2026 [January 14th, 2026]
- Iraq denies suspension of flights at Baghdad airport amid fears of US attack on Iran - Anadolu Ajans - January 14th, 2026 [January 14th, 2026]
- The return of the plunderer: Why Iraq cannot survive another Maliki - Middle East Monitor - January 14th, 2026 [January 14th, 2026]
- Michael Goodwin: Using the military for regime change in Iran would be a gamble -- don't turn it into another Iraq - New York Post - January 14th, 2026 [January 14th, 2026]
- From Iraq to Venezuela, Americas playbook remains the same - Analyst News - January 14th, 2026 [January 14th, 2026]
- Canada urged citizens to urgently leave Iran, and Iraq canceled air travel with the country - - January 14th, 2026 [January 14th, 2026]
- Iraq's Hezbollah: We Will Confront Any Aggression Committed Against Iran - kurdistan24.net - January 14th, 2026 [January 14th, 2026]
- 'Violence-as-a-service' suspect arrested in Iraq, extradition underway - theregister.com - January 14th, 2026 [January 14th, 2026]
- Is Iraq About to Make Its Biggest Geopolitical Pivot in Years? - Yahoo Finance - January 14th, 2026 [January 14th, 2026]
- Minneapolis shooter revealed as Jonathan Ross, Iraq War veteran with nearly two decades of Border Patrol, Immigration experience - Fortune - January 14th, 2026 [January 14th, 2026]
- Moderate earthquake strikes northeast of Basra in southern Iraq - Yeni Safak English - January 14th, 2026 [January 14th, 2026]
- Legacy of ISIS Explosives Persists in Iraq as Blast Remnants Kill and Injure 11 in One Week - kurdistan24.net - January 14th, 2026 [January 14th, 2026]
- There Are Similarities, but Venezuela Is Not Iraq - U.S. News & World Report - January 9th, 2026 [January 9th, 2026]
- All About Jonathan Ross, Iraq War Veteran Who Shot 37-Year-Old Mother In US - NDTV - January 9th, 2026 [January 9th, 2026]
- Iraq Takes Over Lukoil-Run Oilfield to Avoid Disruption from US Sanctions - UNITED24 Media - January 9th, 2026 [January 9th, 2026]
- Iraq to create a special commission to counter the recruitment of its youth for the war against Ukraine - - January 9th, 2026 [January 9th, 2026]
- Iraq and Venezuela: One as Tragedy, Another as Farce - CounterPunch.org - January 9th, 2026 [January 9th, 2026]
- Jonathan Ross: ICE agent who shot Renee Good served in Iraq? Report hints at military past | Hindustan Times - Hindustan Times - January 9th, 2026 [January 9th, 2026]
- John Hewson Has Trump learnt nothing from George W. Bushs disaster in Iraq? - The Saturday Paper - January 9th, 2026 [January 9th, 2026]
- How the Legacy of Iraq Is Shaping the Dem Response to Venezuela - The Bulwark - January 9th, 2026 [January 9th, 2026]
- Investments in Iraq hit $102 billion in three years - Iraqi News - January 9th, 2026 [January 9th, 2026]
- Trumps claim that US controls Venezuela is total (expletive): Dem lawmaker, an Iraq vet, says - MassLive - January 9th, 2026 [January 9th, 2026]
- I Once Supported Regime Change in Iraq. That's Why Venezuela Worries Me. - Reason Magazine - January 8th, 2026 [January 8th, 2026]
- Iraq unrecognisable and remarkable after years of conflict: UN coordinator - Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs - January 8th, 2026 [January 8th, 2026]
- Iraq to nationalise West Qurna 2 oilfield operations, Chevron and Quantum bid for Lukoil - The Arab Weekly - January 8th, 2026 [January 8th, 2026]
- From the Iraq War to the drug war, Toni Smiths protest continues - New York Amsterdam News - January 8th, 2026 [January 8th, 2026]
- Surprise operations lead key scenarios for Iraq and the region amid US escalation - Shafaq News - - January 8th, 2026 [January 8th, 2026]
- How Trump finally buried the Iraq syndrome - The News-Item - January 8th, 2026 [January 8th, 2026]
- Iraq-based Kurdish opposition calls for strike in Iran on Thursday - Space War News - January 8th, 2026 [January 8th, 2026]
- Dollar surge in Iraq: Why did the parallel market jump to 148,000 IQD? - IraqiNews - January 8th, 2026 [January 8th, 2026]
- Ken Research Stated Iraq's Workover Drilling Rigs Market to Reach USD 170 million - openPR.com - January 8th, 2026 [January 8th, 2026]
- Babylon Bloc condemns land seizures in Bakhteme village and warns of demographic change in northern Iraq - SyriacPress - January 8th, 2026 [January 8th, 2026]
- John Fetterman to fellow Democrats on Venezuela: Stop comparing everything to Iraq - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - January 8th, 2026 [January 8th, 2026]
- Iraq to adopt new measures to increase income and control spending - IraqiNews - January 8th, 2026 [January 8th, 2026]
- Iraq awaits a government without politics and a judge above the state - Middle East Monitor - January 8th, 2026 [January 8th, 2026]
- Iraq-based Kurdish opposition calls for strike in Iran on Thursday - Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS) - January 8th, 2026 [January 8th, 2026]
- The removal of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela has some parallels to the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. - facebook.com - January 8th, 2026 [January 8th, 2026]
- Trump says the U.S. will fix Venezuela's oil industry. But remember what happened with Iraq? | Opinion - Houston Chronicle - January 6th, 2026 [January 6th, 2026]
- The Shadow of Iraq Looms over Venezuela - The Free Press - January 6th, 2026 [January 6th, 2026]
- Regime Change in Venezuela: Like Iraq, But With More Confusion - The National Interest - January 6th, 2026 [January 6th, 2026]
- Muslim radicals call for the execution of a cardinal in Iraq - ZENIT - English - January 6th, 2026 [January 6th, 2026]
- Formally ending Iraq wars is a victory for the American people - The Hamilton County Reporter - January 6th, 2026 [January 6th, 2026]
- For some veterans, the specter of Iraq and Afghanistan looms over the Maduro raid - Task & Purpose - January 6th, 2026 [January 6th, 2026]
- Iraq Likely To Begin Enhancing Its Neglected Air Defense In 2026 - Forbes - January 6th, 2026 [January 6th, 2026]
- Iraq War veteran seeks Purple Heart medal more than 20 years after deployment - Stars and Stripes - January 6th, 2026 [January 6th, 2026]
- Iraq Unveils National Strategy to Attract Ten Million Tourists by 2035, Focusing on Security, Infrastructure and Tourism Development - Travel And Tour... - January 6th, 2026 [January 6th, 2026]
- When Did Everything Become Iraq? - The Times of Israel - January 6th, 2026 [January 6th, 2026]
- Trump Touts One Key 'Difference' Between Iraq and Venezuela in Phone Call with Joe Scarborough: 'Bush Didn't Keep the Oil!' - Yahoo - January 6th, 2026 [January 6th, 2026]
- Were Going To Keep The Oil: Trump Defends Venezuela Action, Rejects Iraq Comparison - dailyvoice.com - January 6th, 2026 [January 6th, 2026]
- Ghosts of war Iraq: the cases that never counted - Action on Armed Violence - AOAV - January 6th, 2026 [January 6th, 2026]
- Iraq explores overhaul of largest state-owned lender - Arabian Gulf Business Insight | AGBI - January 6th, 2026 [January 6th, 2026]
- Michael Clarke Q&A: Two reasons behind Trump's intervention in Venezuela - and why there is one similarity to Iraq - Sky News - January 6th, 2026 [January 6th, 2026]
- Iraq plans tenders to relocate heavy industries and facilities from Baghdad - ZAWYA - January 6th, 2026 [January 6th, 2026]
- Nikki Haleys son says Venezuela needs pro-American government, warns US must not repeat Iraq and Afgha - Times of India - January 4th, 2026 [January 4th, 2026]
- This could be Trumps Iraq, and Americans must ask: Is it what we voted for? - The Age - January 4th, 2026 [January 4th, 2026]
- Iraq Marks Sixth Anniversary of Leaders of Victory as PM Sudani Reaffirms Sovereignty Drive - kurdistan24.net - January 4th, 2026 [January 4th, 2026]
- The Revolutionary Guards and the Making of Irans Iraq Policy - Modern Diplomacy - January 4th, 2026 [January 4th, 2026]
- Mark Savaya: We are working to make 2026 the year that uncontrolled weapons end in Iraq - SyriacPress - January 4th, 2026 [January 4th, 2026]
- Iraq rises to second-largest crude oil exporter to the U.S. last week - IraqiNews - January 4th, 2026 [January 4th, 2026]
- Is Venezuela the new Iraq? Comparing operation Absolute Resolve to 2003 - IraqiNews - January 4th, 2026 [January 4th, 2026]
- 'Not the Middle East': Marco Rubio says Venezuela won't echo Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan - thenationalnews.com - January 4th, 2026 [January 4th, 2026]
- Nearly 16,000 prisoners released across Iraq in 2025: Ministry - The New Region - January 4th, 2026 [January 4th, 2026]
- President Barzani and Faiq Zidan Discuss the Political Situation in Iraq - kurdistan24.net - January 4th, 2026 [January 4th, 2026]
- Iraq to revive parliament work with increased sessions - Shafaq News - - January 4th, 2026 [January 4th, 2026]
- Russia Unites With Belarus And Iraq As US Issues Urgent Travel Advisory Amid Increased Risk To Citizens, Arbitrary Detention, And Growing Security... - January 4th, 2026 [January 4th, 2026]
- Op-Ed: Formally ending Iraq wars is a victory for the American people - suncommercial.com - January 4th, 2026 [January 4th, 2026]
- Secretary of War says US intervention in Venezuela "exact opposite" to Iraq invasion - ANI News - January 4th, 2026 [January 4th, 2026]
- Washington aims to end militia presence in Iraq in 2026 - IraqiNews - January 4th, 2026 [January 4th, 2026]
- From Afghanistan To Iraq: Ten Regimes That US Toppled And The Mess They Left Behind - News18 - January 4th, 2026 [January 4th, 2026]
- Senior Member Of Iran-Backed Militia: The Resistance Factions In Iraq Are Developing Military AI Capabilities - MEMRI - December 31st, 2025 [December 31st, 2025]
- War in Venezuela: The Iraq War All Over Again? - 19FortyFive - December 31st, 2025 [December 31st, 2025]
- Iran futsal team to play two friendlies with Iraq - Tehran Times - December 31st, 2025 [December 31st, 2025]