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957-09-4405
Response Paper; September 23, 2003
In this paper we will look at the history of Iraq and its relations to the US and UN
beginning in the Gulf War and through the conclusion of its overthrow by the United
States. More specifically, we will analyze US policy under the competing spiral and
deterrence models to evaluate how they applied in this specific case. We begin with some
invasion was denounced by the UN Security Council [1] and international community as
a whole. The US, Kuwait’s ally, then moved into Kuwait and defeated Iraq in a matter of
weeks. The UN Security Council then imposed sanctions on Iraq and imposed inspectors
on it to ensure that it was not developing WMD’s. This worked for some time, until
Saddam’s regime became aggressive again and tried to impair inspection operations. Iraq
eventually expelled inspectors, without any retribution from the UN or any individual
country. Later, after the recent terrorist attacks, the US tried to get the inspectors back
into Iraq for national security purposes. Saddam allowed inspectors back in but there was
(and still is) much debate about how much autonomy and ability they had to do their job.
When the US decided to instigate the Gulf War it was clearly a result of a
deterrence policy motivated by a few observations. Iraq was weak relative to the US, did
sanctions and original inspectors were also motivated by deterrence, for two reasons.
That is, it prevents or slows Iraq’s ability to actually create these weapons but it also
makes a psychological impact which shows that Iraq’s actions will not be tolerated.
Iraq did eventually become rebellious, though. Iraq had, indeed, called the
international community’s bluff. Not only did the UN remove inspectors, it did not act
against Iraq in retribution. This is a divergence from the deterrence policy that had been
adopted by the US and UN up until that point. This showed that Saddam’s crime had
been “forgotten” with time and that he could defy international efforts without any
punishment. Essentially this is appeasement, relative to the policy that had been adopted
up until this point. Had the US and UN been too easy in dealing with Iraq up until that
point, or was their primary folly in not punishing Iraq more after it expelled the
inspectors? The historical facts argue for the latter. There wasn’t much more that could
be done just after the Gulf War without raising international concern about human rights
and other issues, aside from an all-out invasion, which seemed to be too aggressive at the
time. Instead, more should have been done in response to Iraq’s later defiance. In effect
Saddam was testing the waters to see how resolved the US and UN was to “violate Iraq’s
It can be argued that Saddam set out to take over the world, in which case the
appropriate response is not an easy topic to resolve. In effect it seems that a state must
understand another state’s intentions through intelligence and historical analysis and
<http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/12/24/iraq.tracker.tuesday/>