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
- Iran says Iraq exempt from any Strait of Hormuz restrictions - Reuters - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- Iran Clears Iraq to Use Strait of Hormuz - wsj.com - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- Iraq War Vet Dem Rep.: The longer the war goes on, the more leverage Iran has - MS NOW - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- U.S. tells Americans in Iraq to leave immediately amid threat from Iran-backed militias - NBC News - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- Iran-backed militias are destroying Iraq. Baghdad must take them on. - Atlantic Council - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- American journalist abducted in Iraq had just trained on what to do in case she was kidnapped: Colleague - ABC News - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- Americans in Iraq warned to leave 'now' amid threats of imminent attacks - NBC News - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- In Iran, Iraq and the U.S., Women Speak Out Against State Repression - Ms. Magazine - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- New Iraq report urges stronger action to protect Christians and other religious minorities - christiantoday.com - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- Drone strikes signal escalating threat to Iraqi oil sector - Iraq Oil Report - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- 21 games later: Iraq back at the World Cup after epic qualifying campaign - The Guardian - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- Middle East Conflict: Tensions spill over to Iraq, with residential areas and public infrastructure hit by drone attacks - news.cgtn.com - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- Iraq shuts key trade crossing with southern Iran after airstrikes near border post - The Times of Israel - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- Iraq closes southern border crossing with Iran following deadly strike - China Daily - Global Edition - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- Ohio National Guard pilot killed in Iraq to be buried Friday - FOX19 | Cincinnati - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- America is about to hand Iraq to Iran again - Washington Examiner - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- Freelance journalist from southern Wisconsin kidnapped in Iraq - WKOW - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- US Embassy in Iraq warns Americans to leave now as Middle East strikes intensify - The Hill - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- Iran: Iraq to be exempt from any Hormuz restrictions - Breakingthenews.net - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- Iraq weather update: Clear skies south, rain and thunder in the north - Iraqi News - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- Iran eases transit restrictions for Iraq, but US-Iran ceasefire odds drop - cryptobriefing.com - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- CAIR Calls for Release of Wisconsin Journalist Shelly Kittleson Kidnapped in Iraq - CAIR - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- Iraq War pilots among military experts enabling first crewed moon mission in more than 50 years - Stars and Stripes - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- Iraqi Resistance Fighter Carry 19 Anti-US Ops Across Iraq - WION - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- Deadly airstrike shuts Iraq's Shalamcheh crossing with Iran - Trkiye Today - April 5th, 2026 [April 5th, 2026]
- Iraq's World Cup qualification 'one of the toughest jobs in the world' - Arnold - espn.com - March 30th, 2026 [March 30th, 2026]
- Alive or not? Mojtaba Khamenei resurfaces with message to Iraq after Trump claim - India Today - March 30th, 2026 [March 30th, 2026]
- Iraq one step from first World Cup in 40 years after overcoming travel problems - MSN - March 30th, 2026 [March 30th, 2026]
- Latest message purportedly from Irans new supreme leader thanks Iraq for war support - The Times of Israel - March 30th, 2026 [March 30th, 2026]
- Khamenei Commends Iraq for Standing with Iran in War Against US, Israel - Caspian Post - March 30th, 2026 [March 30th, 2026]
- Rene Meulensteen: Qualifying for a World Cup is an opportunity to change the perception of Iraq - The Athletic - The New York Times - March 30th, 2026 [March 30th, 2026]
- Bolivias youthful reinvention takes them to brink of World Cup, but Iraq have cause to believe - The Athletic - The New York Times - March 30th, 2026 [March 30th, 2026]
- U.S. Policy in Iraq Deepens Its Crises Rather than Resolving Them - Middle East Forum - March 30th, 2026 [March 30th, 2026]
- The Long Shadow of the Iran-Iraq War - newlinesmag.com - March 30th, 2026 [March 30th, 2026]
- Iranians at the border crossing into Iraq urge the US to end the war - The Lufkin Daily News - March 30th, 2026 [March 30th, 2026]
- U.S. Tells Citizens to Leave Iraq After Second Attack on Embassy - The New York Times - March 30th, 2026 [March 30th, 2026]
- Sister recounts relentless fight to free sibling held captive in Iraq for 903 days - CBS News - March 30th, 2026 [March 30th, 2026]
- AP reports: Iranians at border crossing into Iraq urge US to end the war - Yahoo - March 30th, 2026 [March 30th, 2026]
- Mojtaba Khamenei Breaks Silence After Trump Question His Absence; Thanks Iraq For Supporting In War - The Times of India - March 30th, 2026 [March 30th, 2026]
- Three Ohio airmen killed in crash over Iraq to be returned to Columbus - WLWT - March 30th, 2026 [March 30th, 2026]
- Irans IRGC threatens to strike American universities in Iraq - Iraqi News - March 30th, 2026 [March 30th, 2026]
- Excavations at Alexander the Great's rediscovered city in Iraq postponed due to war - The Art Newspaper - March 30th, 2026 [March 30th, 2026]
- Exiled Iranian Kurds in Iraq say they will return only if Iran's theocracy falls - PBS - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- Nato relocates personnel from Iraq mission to Europe amid conflict in Middle East as it happened - The Guardian - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- Kurds in northern Iraq celebrate the new year festival of Nowruz, in photos - AP News - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- Irans proxy militias in Iraq blast open a new front in war against US - The Jerusalem Post - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- From the archives: Airmen at Bashur Airfield, Iraq - Stars and Stripes - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- A Look Back at the U.S.-led Invasion of Iraq, 23 Years On - PBS - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- NATO says it is 'adjusting' mission in Iraq after report of withdrawal of personnel - Reuters - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- Iraq declares force majeure on foreign-operated oil fields over Hormuz disruption, sources say - Middle East Eye - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- Fire reported after attack near US military base in northern Iraq - Anadolu Ajans - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- Iraq's Kataib Hezbollah says it will temporarily suspend attacks on US embassy with conditions - Reuters - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- Father of 3 deployed less than week among 6 airmen killed in plane crash in Iraq - NBC 6 South Florida - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- Iraq Unable to Control Armed Militias, Kurdish Official Warns, Citing Hundreds of Attacks - Kurdistan24 - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- Dollar steady in Iraq as Eid holiday halts trading - - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- Iraq says investigations ongoing over attacks on diplomatic missions - thenewregion.com - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- Trumps Iran War Already Costs More Than Bushs Iraq Opening - Newsweek - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- Pentagon targets Iran-linked militias in Iraq as Hegseth vows 'we will finish this' for fallen US troops - Fox News - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- Exiled Iranian Kurds in Iraq say they will return only if Irans theocracy falls - Los Angeles Times - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- From the archives: Day 1 of the Iraq War - CBS News - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- Post-Saddam Iraq at 23: The War It Never Wanted Is Back - Modern Diplomacy - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- Kurds in northern Iraq celebrate the new year festival of Nowruz, in photos - Union-Bulletin - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- On World Water Day 2026, know about the Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran and their aqua-centric faith - Down To Earth - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- Iranian Kurdish fighters find themselves in the middle of U.S.-Iran war as they wait in Iraq - CBC - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- Iranian Kurds long for home as they mark Nowruz in Iraq - AL-Monitor - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- The 200 Spanish soldiers who remained in Iraq have been successfully evacuated - thediplomatinspain.com - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- Exiled Iranian Kurds in Iraq say they will return only if Irans theocracy falls - AP News - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- Same Lies, New War: Trump and the Iraq Playbook - Reason Magazine - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- Pilot Honors Three Ohio Air National Guardsmen Killed in Refueling Tanker Crash in Iraq - The Weekly Times - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- French jihadist sentenced to life in jail over IS group genocide of Iraq's Yazidis - France 24 - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- Iraq Was the Warm-Up: Iran Is the Trap - RealClearDefense - March 22nd, 2026 [March 22nd, 2026]
- U.S. Embassy in Baghdad Targeted as Iraq Gets Drawn Deeper Into Regional War - The New York Times - March 9th, 2026 [March 9th, 2026]
- Beware the similarities between the wars in Iraq and Trumps Iran war - The Seattle Times - March 9th, 2026 [March 9th, 2026]
- From Iraq to Iran: How Congress Handed Over War Powers to the Presidency - Military.com - March 9th, 2026 [March 9th, 2026]
- The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was targeted in a rocket attack over the weekend as Iraq found itself being drawn deeper into the war engulfing... - March 9th, 2026 [March 9th, 2026]
- Iraq coach Graham Arnold urges FIFA to delay his team's World Cup playoff because of the Iran war - NBC 6 South Florida - March 9th, 2026 [March 9th, 2026]
- Action on Another Front: Strikes on Pro-Tehran Militias in Iraq - Foundation for Defense of Democracies - March 9th, 2026 [March 9th, 2026]
- Oil and gas production shutdowns in Iraq and Kuwait widen the Iran war's impact on energy prices - Fortune - March 9th, 2026 [March 9th, 2026]
- Opinion | Trumps Iran War and the Shadow of Iraq - The New York Times - March 9th, 2026 [March 9th, 2026]
- Iraq coach Graham Arnold urges FIFA to delay his team's World Cup playoff because of the Iran war - Temple Daily Telegram - March 9th, 2026 [March 9th, 2026]