| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Allwars produce their own lessons, but fewwars yield a consensus as towhat those lessons should be. So it is with America's 2003 invasion of Iraq. The immediate consensus surrounding this conflict was that the war was mismanaged and poorly prosecuted. There has been no shortage of books documenting the folly of the Bush administration in this regard.1 Such books often focus on the alleged architects of the Iraq War, from George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to the much maligned neoconservative intellectuals huddled around the Project for a New American Century and writing for the Weekly Standard and Commentary.2 As time has passed, however, there has been a growing body of literature seeking to explain the deeper roots of America's involvement in Iraq. Intellectuals have gone beyond the earliest justifications offered by the Bush administration,which tended to centre on Iraq's quest forweapons ofmass destruction and its alleged ties to terrorist groups. In this burgeoning literature, President Bush, Vice-President Cheney and the neocons are no longer presented as the sole 'villains' of the Iraq War.3
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