In his book Managing National Security Policy: The President and the Process, William Newmann sets forth a theoretical framework called the evolution model which suggests that each president evolves his own decision making strategies over time, based on the domestic political climate, organizational structure of his administration, and natural tendencies to endorse or promote personal ideologies. Newmann’s evolution model suggests that over time the priorities and interests of the executive branch will change, so all presidents and subsequent administrations will feel similar pressure to adapt under such circumstances. Over time, this has allowed the executive branch to minimize participation of the extended administration in decision making, add more informal processes to streamline decision making, and even extend the overall authoritative power of the President (Newmann, 2003).
The independent variables in Newmann’s evolution model of presidential decision making—domestic political climate, organizational structure of his administration, and natural tendencies to endorse or promote personal ideologies— were chosen to reflect the many schools of thought which represent the many pressures upon the executive branch. The evolution model provides a newly synthesized bureaucratic institutionalism which suggests that presidential decision making is in fact dynamic, rather than static (Newmann, 2003). This hybrid model contends that presidents merge their interests to satisfy public interest based on the existing domestic and international political environment, the bureaucracy and the institutions which support it, and his own organizational interest in national defense. The conglomerate of interests bargain one another, positioning compromise and reciprocity until governmental policy is achieved. However, presidential choices in decision making should not be limited to the satisfaction of others. In fact, Newmann’s publication asserts that the chief executive must be evaluated in terms of his role, his decision making style, and his political needs. Of course, political polarity in modern policymaking leads to discourse on the exact definitions of presidential power. Despite presidential personality, approval ratings, experience, and leadership… party affiliation remains one of the most fundamental influences on exertion of authority (Milani, 1994). Additionally, new institutionalism in the federal government implies that the President must also weigh the opinions of Congress and lobbyists in his national security decision making. President Bush and President Obama provide an excellent example of two very ideologically different executives who faced two entirely different wars, but how exactly did their decisions influence America’s involvement in the state of the Middle East?
The influences which counteracted on President Bush and President Obama during the course of the Iraq war are not mutually exclusive to each executive, but rather reflect a complex network of interests and idiosyncrasies that played a role in American national security. Presidential decision making evolved greatly from March 2003, when President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq and the destruction of Saddam Hussein’s regime until December 2011, when the last U.S. troop left Iraq in accordance with President Obama’s continuation of a prior arrangement between President Bush and Iraq to end U.S. involvement by the end of 2011. With national security as a pressing issue at the forefront of the executive agenda between 2003 and 2011, the evolution model can be used to explain American involvement in the Iraq War (Abbas Milani, 2005).
National Security and Defense
National security is defined as the protection of “people, territory, and way of life” but it inherently differs from national defense in that it protects intangible properties such as interests and values of a nation, as opposed to protecting against physical attack (Diamond 2006). Of course, it is imperative for presidential administrations to protect not only against physical attack but to preserve liberties and the institutions established to protect such freedoms. However, the definition of American ideals varies tremendously among presidents and the prioritization of the most basic issues requiring attention is a particularly arbitrary process which relies predominantly on the subjective opinions of the executive in charge. Nonetheless, the executive branch is designed to protect the well-being of the state based on the most fundamental values and interests which adhere everyday American life to its institutionalization (Jordan, 2009). This incorporates societal pressures into the looming responsibility to acknowledge and fulfill the demands from the American public. For example, President Bush and President Obama both faced the Iraq War, but the conditions in Iraq had evolved so immensely between 2003 and 2011 that each president was facing a fundamentally different War. According to a PLOS Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003-2011 War Study, there were just over half a million deaths caused by the Iraq War following the U.S. invasion (Morgenthau, 2015). Rightfully so, some Americans began to perceive the war as an unnecessary loss of lives. Thus, President Obama was faced with a critical new interest in the wake of wartime casualties, including the increasing loss of both American and Iraqi lives as the war continued. President Bush and his administration likely had not predicted such an immense amount of bloodshed, not to mention civilian casualties, or the astronomical financial costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which were projected to be about $4 trillion dollars by the Cost of War Project. If the interest of this debt continues to accumulate as a result of going to war, the interest alone could increase the deficit by another $7 trillion in the next 30 years. When President Obama entered office after President Bush, the debt alone was a massive concern in desperate need of attention, likely spurring the withdrawal of troops. The constantly changing environment of Iraq during wartime meant that both presidents faced fundamentally different wars, and the decision making used by each executive cannot be compared. This portrays the section of Newmann’s evolution model which assumes that each president faces unique situational circumstances which change over time. In this case, these situational circumstances affecting wartime decision making prohibit presidential doctrines from being compared subjectively against one another. There is a theory in statistics which states that transformed and untransformed models are not allowed to be compared based on their goodness of fit in their coefficient of determination, or R2 (Rose, 1976). As a parallel to this situation, presidential doctrines are transformed over time and shaped by societal and environmental pressures. This means that the goodness of fit of presidential doctrines also cannot be compared with one statistic alone, R2.
There is a pol
itical and t
heoretical divide among politicians who observe the evolutionary school of thought about national security and executive oversight which is incorporated in the evolution model. Many politicians believe transnational security issues such as migration, narcotic abuse, national crime rates, and domestic terrorism deserve more emphasis than international terror threats. Others argue that international terror should be the primary interest of presidential doctrines (Jordan, 2009). This division of interpretation of American national security came about after the Cold War, when American concern for domestic national security against these issues grew to receive greater emphasis alongside traditional military and economic initiatives. Additionally, the American public became increasingly supportive of the military as an institution controlled by the executive. However, it was not until the Gulf War of 1991 when a U.S. led coalition attacked Iraq in an effort to isolate the region of chaos. The end of this war sparked a new era for the United States, one that was characterized by a newfound military involvement on the ground in the Middle East (Russett, 1995). The United States gained the opportunity to establish a new world order of cooperation and to spread democracy, increasing American credibility within the Middle East. As America’s sphere of foreign policy continued to evolve, the evolution model was at work shaping the ideologies of presidential national security doctrines.
After the terrorist attacks in New York City on September 11th, 2001, President George W. Bush signed legislation that created the Department of Homeland Security. In 2002. Unfortunately, the 9/11 attacks reinforced the limitations and weaknesses of the United States’ ability to protect against international physical attacks. The Department of Homeland Security was created to “prevent terrorist attacks within the United States; reduce America’s vulnerability to terrorism, and minimize the damage and recover from attacks that do occur” (Sterner, 1997). In order to accomplish this, the DHS would “mobilize and focus the resources of the federal government, state and local governments, the private sector, and the American people.” This new department would act as an intermediary between nontangible interests of the U.S. in addition to traditional concrete forms of threat. Thus, it became crucial to consider American national security as more than a material form of protection from physical attacks, but also as a safeguard to preserve the vitality of the United States’ and all of its values, interests, and institutions. This was the first instance of executive construction of an agency to protect against physical threat since the beginning of the Persian Gulf War (Karsh, 2010).
Americans suddenly became nervous about this extremely broad interpretation of national security and how it would increase the flexibility in the tactics employed by the president at his own discretion. For example, President Bush is known for his unilaterally aggressive actions against American adversaries. His goals were clear, to promote democracy and counter terror. President Obama strikingly had a very similar agenda to President Bush. His 2009 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, his 2009 Cairo speech and his National Security Strategy argued, consistent with Bush, that preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and confronting extremism in the form of terrorist organizations were America’s two top national security challenges” (Wendt, 2015). However, his tactics to achieve such interests involve a much more laissez-faire approach seeking respect, compliance, and anti-unilateralism among world powers. In terms of war, these remarkable differences were accentuated. While President Bush may have initially sent troops into Iraq, taking the troops out under President Obama’s administration would be extraordinarily difficult considering the battle-damaged frontline state of the Middle East.
America’s Historical Sphere of National Security
Americans have traditionally viewed national security as a secondary issue of interest, second to that of private matters facing the United States aside from foreign involvement. However, in times of war or existential threat, American idealism regarding national security changes instantly and sharply. The perception of the “American experience” changes once constituents become conscious of a perceived threat from foreign enemies, and national security can quickly become one of the exclusive interests of presidential administrations. Several post-World War II changes in American diplomacy and presidential approach to military control and national security occurred. As could be expected, this drastically changed presidential methodologies used in the decision making regarding national security (Waxman, 2007).
First, American sureness of the reliability of the military has vastly increased during recent decades. In 2008, a pool showed that the American public had the most confidence in the military out of all the institutions in the United States. Accordingly, the same survey data indicates that only 26% of Americans felt the most confident about the President as an institution, and only 12% felt most confident about Congress as an institution. Since 1987, the military has been the most trusted institution in this poll provided by the Annual Review of Political Science, as well as the decade before when American citizens were either most confident in the military or in organized religious organizations (Thucydides, 2017). With the President acting as the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S military, this suggests that Americans have also displayed optimistic and confident approval ratings of the executive as an extension of the military. With positive feedback from the public and a diminishing fear of disapproval from constituents, the president became more likely to make unbiased and effective decisions that are not affected by emotional appeal.
Second, Americans have begun to separate their perception of military action from that of the United States government’s decisions to work towards war or peace. After the victory of World War II in 1945, the U.S. military became inherently engrained in the national security process. In 1947, the National Security Act created a long-term conceptual recreation of the military and its role in national defense. The Act established provisions that made the United States military much more tangentially related to overall defense planning and policy development. The National Security Council was founded as part of the National Security Act to create an organization at the highest level of government to refine the relationships between “national objectives and military policy in peacetime and in war—and in the gray area between” (George, 1993). Since its establishment in 1947, legislative action and executive orders have changed the specificities of the National Security Council. The Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 adjusted the National Security Council so far as to mandate that the President set forth a specific national security strategy so that the nation is pursuing unified ideologies and working towards a communal mission. However, each president has unique ideologies outlined within the evolution model, and their decision making strategies on foreign involvement varies as a result.
Third, the devotion of American resources to the military has changed significantly according to the level of national security that each presidential administration sets forth as a priority. From the 1950’s through the 1980’s, the soviet threat drove Americans to allocate a substantial share of the nation’s wealth to defense. Although the armed forces faced significant budget stringency in the years following the Vietnam War, the last few years of the Carter administration again saw budget growth. The budget then grew significantly during the Reagan years,
from $359 bil
lion in fiscal year (FY) 1980, before Reagan took office, to $486 billion in FY 1988. After the subsequent downfall of the Soviet Union, the American public expected the president to begin a peaceful new order, and President George H. W. Bush adapted his national security decision making accordingly (Jordan, 2009). Until well into the Clinton administration, military spending was minimalized in the budget and the executive branch took a more peaceful approach to foreign affairs during the worldwide time of recovery. However, defense spending was on the rise again after the second Clinton administration. In fact, in FY 2000, the second of two years in a row of budget increases, defense spending was $290 billion. After the terror attacks of 9/11, President Bush increased defense spending astronomically, as could be expected. The FY 2007 defense budget reached $603 billion (Jordan). With these statistics, it is clear that fiscal spending has fluctuated heavily in accordance with the defense strategies of the president in office at the time. Fiscal spending was likely the lowest it had been in decades when it plummeted as low as $50 billion in 1971 under President Nixon’s detenté policy regime. Since then, it has surpassed $600 billion according to the Office of Management and Budget. As one could expect, unique presidential defense strategies vary in cost as they vary in involvement. Complex or aggressive foreign policies will require a higher expenditure than more laissez-faire tactics, so the economy certainly has an influence on presidential decision making (Jordan, 2009).
A fourth change has been to U.S. military manpower policy, which transformed significantly during the Nixon administration and has remained essentially constant since. While campaigning for his first run as president in 1968, Richard Nixon announced his intention to end the draft and to create an exclusively volunteer military force (Hen-Tov, 2007). The American public and public officials debated and reflected regarding “views on the Vietnam War, the duties of citizens, and conceptions of fairness as they related to conscription” (Robinson, 1997). Nonetheless, suitable legislation was finally passed, and the last conscript left the force in November 1974. Since that day in 1974, the United States has relied entirely on the willingness of its own citizens to protect the values and interests of their country. Although the volunteer force is widely accepted and well respected today, there are still recurring concerns and potential debate about the separation of the military from the society it serves and the relative merits of compulsory military service. Of course, President Obama and President Bush both agree that a volunteer-based militia is appropriate, but this school of thought surrounding a privatized armed forces in the U.S. warrants consideration as a fundamental ideology that influences presidential decision making.
As with the many changes that took place over time in terms of American political climate and the executive defense strategy, there were decisions made by both presidential administrations which would ultimately seal the fate of Americans and Iraqis alike. With each decision comes substantive consequences, and critics from both sides of the aisle in congress and both sides of the political spectrum in the general American public were quick to argue that each president had made wrongful decisions (Ayoob, 2012). The purpose of this research is not to report on which presidential doctrine served as the most successful in the Iraq war, but rather how President Bush and President Obama’s decisions would affect the overall outcome of the war and the stability of the Middle East. Through the analysis of influences on presidential decision making and a closer look through the evolution model lens at the executives who oversaw the Iraq war, we are able to better understand how presidential foreign policies influence the world around us.
The Middle East
The start of the 21st century sparked considerable transformation of the state of the Middle East. With rising tensions after the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process came to a halt in 2000, the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, compelled the United States to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. The convergence of these events led to further instability in the Middle East. The goal of this insurgency was to stabilize the state of the Middle East and to discontinue the manufacture and possession of weapons of mass destruction in the region.
As a prelude to the Iraq War, Saddam Hussein served as President of Iraq for over two decades and spent his reign subduing the Kurds of Iraq, the largest ethnic minority of the country. As a result, Kurds have spent the last several decades hindered by genocide, suppression, and betrayal from their own leaders (Diamond, 2006).
Israel and Palestine signed the Oslo Accords in 1993 which acted as a peace settlement that was designed to act as a dual-state solution. Unfortunately, actual forward progress was undetectable, and Palestine rebelled in September 2000 against the Israeli occupation of newly self-governed Palestinian areas. This second Palestinian uprising, known as the Al Aqsa Intifada (“Al Aqsa” after the mosque in Jerusalem, and “Intifada” for uprising), unraveled previous progress and left the peace process in tatters. Just one year after this revitalization of violence among the Israelis and Palestinians, the al Qaeda terrorist attacks on the United States Twin Towers in New York City led to enormous changes in U.S. relations with the Middle East (Piscatori, 2006). In order to undermine and overthrow the operations of al Qaeda, the United States attacked Afghanistan in October of 2003 since operative training camps had been established to support the terror group boasting a regime similar to that of their Taliban fundaments. In March 2003, the United States invaded Iraq with a mission to seek and destroy weapons of mass destruction. Additionally, the U.S. sought to overthrow the regime of Iraq’s vicious leader, Saddam Hussein, as well as to establish a democracy that could support and stabilize other regions of the Middle East. By stabilizing Iraq, the U.S. had hoped to repress the growth of ideological and religious extremism in the region, which had arisen as a result of unrepresentative government and political hostility. However, the marginally successful operations in Iraq faced continued disaffection and political instability during the years after 2003, so Iraq remained lacking a representative democracy and was almost entirely eliminated as a counterbalance to Iran (Piscatori, 2006).
After years of U.S. involvement in Iraq, perhaps the most difficult transition in Iraqi lifestyle occurred during the occupation after the fall of the regime and continued civil warfare. Public offices and institutions were pillaged through as violence was sweeping through Iraq’s largest cities. Religious sects gravely fought and reprisal vehemence against the government soon became massively problematic guerilla warfare. Restoring law and order to the war-torn region was extremely difficult for the occupying troops. In fact, deaths of U.S. troops reached over 3,000 soldiers by the year 2007 (Waxman, 2007). Even despite rebuilding efforts from occupying forces and the newly erected Iraqi government, the economy was suffering critically. Not even the vast crude oil reserves in the region could outweigh the oppressively large debt which widely exceeded the minimal gross domestic product (GDP) income. According to data on the general government net debt for Iraq from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Iraq’s government debt was at an astounding 344% of GDP in 2004. After U.S. occupation, Iraq’s government debt had fallen to 74% of GDP in 2008 (World, 2014).
During this time, Iraqi citizens became further divided by sectarian violence of the country’s two dominant yet rival Shiite and S
unni militias. After
the creation of a Shiite ruled government, Iran was bolstered to display a more aggressive power in the region. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad supported an anti-western regime by continued support to terror groups and continuing to develop uranium enrichment, causing fear that this advancement of chemical warfare is most likely to develop weapons of mass destruction. In fact, by 2007, it was confirmed that Iran was providing training resources to extremist groups in Iraq working against the agenda of U.S. occupying forces (Ajami, 2012).
U.S. Interest in the Middle East
Despite new and arduous dynamics in Middle East, a few very specific interests remained at the forefront of the U.S. government’s agenda.
Oil Resources
Most specifically, the Middle East is the world’s most critical source of crude oil exports. According to a World Bank Publication, Persian Gulf countries produce 28% of the world’s oil, retain more than 70% of the world’s excess oil production capacity, and hold 65% of the world’s oil reserves.” Since 1973, the United States’ demand for imported oil has risen by an astounding 58.3% (World, 2016). However, oil reserves in the North America have become increasingly available with advancements in oil drilling technology. While the United States’ overall dependence on oil from the Middle East is falling, it is not surprising to note that the U.S. government will remain interested in oil stability in the middle east to help stabilize prices, availability, and access. With the rest of the globe following a similar trend of rapidly increasing interest to protect oil prices coming from the Middle East, the loss of this source of the world’s energy supply due to political instability or terrorism would be catastrophic. Ultimately, this would raise the price of oil due to increased competition far beyond the price at economic equilibrium. Absent highly unlikely dramatic progress in the development of alternative fuel sources, the rapid development of the globe will continue to fuel international demand for accessible and affordable crude oil energy resources from the Middle East (World, 2016).
The Security of Israel
Despite the fact that U.S. relations with Israel have been complicated since the establishment of the country in 1948, the federal government has consistently the alliance with Israel to be one of the most essential interests for the executive branch. Prior to Israel being established officially as a country, government officials argued whether the country would act as more of a liability than a benefit. However, President Harry Truman ultimately decided to support the newly created institution. Even in spite of period disputes with Israel including Israel’s alliance with Britain and France during the Suez War in 1956 and Israel’s continued settlement of the West Bank and Gaza after its occupation of Palestinian territories in 1967. However, Israel remains as the only functioning democracy in the entire Middle East. Because of this, U.S. interest in the stability of Israel is bolstered heavily by one of the United States’ most powerful lobbying groups, the American-Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC). AIPAC is further supported by Christian lobbying groups (Jordan, 2009).
Although President Truman supported Israel as early as its formation in 1948, U.S. support for the country was not substantial until the 1960s. Prior to 1996, France and Britain had acted as Israel’s main arms supplier. As a response to the Soviet Union’s arms delivery to Egypt and Syria, the United States delivered large amounts of contemporary military supplies and arms. In addition to this sustained relationship of supplying arms, the 1979 Camp David Peace Accords further secured Israel as the largest single recipient of U.S. foreign aid (Hourani, 1991). These 12 day talks at a presidential retreat in Washington allowed President Jimmy Carter to capitalize on the new mood of peace after the 1967 war. The first of two agreements set forth at the conference was A Framework for Peace In the Middle East, which expounded on resolution 242 and worked towards peace. It outlined treaties between neighbors of the region and proposed a self-sovereign authority in the West Bank and Gaza, but the Palestinians could not be brought to agreement on the issue. The second of the two agreements was a framework for the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. After Israel had withdrawn from Sinai in 1979, it was first recognized as a state by a major Arab country. While the treaty has lasted, tensions between Israel and Egypt remain (Jordan, 2009).
Stability and Security in Iraq
Since the invasion in 2003, the United States has remained politically, militarily, and economically involved on the ground in Iraq. Although Saddam Hussein’s regime had been overthrown successfully, the marginal success of establishing a stable democracy which could withstand political turbulence and maintain internal order in a civilly unrest region was still questionable. According to a 2006 bipartisan Iraq Study Group, the failing U.S. regime change left Iraqi citizens feeling exploited and overruled.4 Possible results of American overreach in the dynamic environment could lead to ethnic cleansing, a large-scale humanitarian crisis, a violent sectarian partition of the state, a brutal successor regime, a broader regional conflict, and the possibility of “Sunni-Shia clashes across the Islamic world” (Kissinger, 2014).
With weakening security in Iraq during 2006, American officials swiftly made policy changes in 2007. The United States switched the focus from seeking and destroying insurgents to a “clear and hold” approach. This required U.S. troops to remove insurgent presence in specific areas, beginning with Baghdad, and then place occupying troops in the area to control the power. Both Iraqi and American units contributed to this new transitional strategy. By the end of 2008, this clear and hold approach was proving successful in enhancing security of the region, but this new-found stability was shaky at best. Critics of this movement asserted that the desperately needed Iraqi reconciliation among its majority forces of power, the Shiites and Sunnis, would not proceed under American force (Jordan, 2009).
Iran and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Regarding Iran’s nuclear program under their deterrent-based military doctrine, the U.S. National Security Strategy of 2006 states:
For almost 20 years, the Iranian regime hid many of its key nuclear efforts from the international community. Yet the regime continues to claim that it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons. The Iranian regime’s true intentions are clearly revealed by the regime’s refusal to negotiate in good faith; its refusal to come into compliance with its international obligations by providing the [International Atomic Energy Agency] access to nuclear sites and resolving troubling questions; and the aggressive statements of its President calling for Israel to be “wiped off the face of the Earth.”
There are several concerns with Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. First, such chemical warfare could be used intentionally be used as retaliation or defense, it could be used accidentally, it could be transferred to other authorities or non-state actors, it could unintentionally illicit other militias, or it could set off a nuclear arms race between the Sunnis and Iran, which is predominantly Shia (Milani, 2004.
Countering the Political Influence of Radical Islamist Ideology
American policy in the Middle East has long prioritized the protection of American citizens from acts of terrorism inspired extremist ideologies in the name of the jihad. Radical extremists often use jihad to support the concept of violent action, even in targeting noncombatant civilians. The United States counters radical extr
emists by eliminating Islamist terro
rists and working against states such as Iran and Syria who readily harbor and promote the interest of such terrorists (Ajami, 2011). The effort to delegitimize the merit of these institutions begins with a fundamental understanding of Islam and its many possible interpretations. The diverse interpretations of the Islam religion compete for validity and following by the Muslim community.
Ranking in as the world’s second largest religion, Islam suggests that its followers “submit to the will and ultimate sovereignty of God (Allah) as communicated through Muhammad, the final prophet of God, in its holy book, the Koran.” The Pre-Islamic Arabia was united in AD 622 after Muhammad claimed that Allah serves all humanity as a universal final authority. Subsequently, the Islamic caliphate spread rapidly through surrounding Europe and Asia, but the modern Muslim world continues to suffer through inescapable poverty and humiliation in comparison to its western religious counterparts. As a result, many Muslims view American ideals exclusively as a corrupt westernized agenda and are consequently encouraged to reject and wage war against the United States particularly, all in the name of jihad (Ajami, 2011).
Although America has historically been persistent in upholding its interest to eradicate extremists in the Middle East, the fight to spread liberal Islamic thought and to delegitimize the validity of extremists has been extraordinarily difficult. The unrelenting Israeli-Palestinian conflict, America’s unwavering alliance with Israel, and the continued presence of American occupation in Iraq have all impeded the United States in successfully protecting the interest in countering radicalism.
History of U.S. Involvement in the Region
During the 1960’s, several economic and political changes including the global influx in oil consumption, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the British withdrawal from the Persian Gulf, and the increasing presence of Soviet Union led to increased American interest in the middle-eastern region (Jordan, 2009). As a result of these events, the United States interest in the Middle East became a matter of great complexity and priority for policy makers.7 Accessing oil at affordable prices became a concern for the world since the supply of oil was threatened during the Persian Gulf Crisis of 1990-1991, especially since Saddam Hussein was theoretically power enough to exercise a monopoly over the entire Persian Gulf oil reserve market. Given that alternative liquid fuel resources would take decades to develop and implement, maintaining friendly relations with countries in the Middle East will likely remain an especially important interest for the United States (Jordan, 2009).
Executive Involvement in Iraq
Because of the complexity of the military presence in Iraq and shaky relations with the Middle East, it is difficult to dissect the outcomes of the war and draw lines to the decisions that determined the fate of the battle (Andersen, 2015). However, arguably one of the most heavily debated controversies of the Iraq War and presidential decision making is who should forbear the mistake of withdrawing American presence from Iraq and allowing the radical Islam group, ISIS, to form. After a full year of air strikes in Iraq, the Bush Administration chose to disband the Iraqi army after the invasion in 2003, leaving Iraqi citizens without financial support in a crumbling economy. According to the Army chief of staff, General Ray Odierno, the U.S. could have excavated the extremists and Saddam Hussein’s loyalists from the Iraqi army without entirely terminating the military force. This decision allowed Iraq’s strongest Sunni fighters who were left without jobs to join forces with other strains of sectarian extremists and consequently transform into ISIS. Jack Keane, a retired Army vice chief of staff and one of the many architects of the insurgency said “Not reorganizing the army and policy immediately were huge strategic mistakes.” In addition to the questionable decision to disband the army, there are many incalculable costs of the war and it is extremely difficult to numerate and measure the . Torturing enemies, interrogations, and flights to secret prisons around the world is not inexpensive. However, according to criminologists Cynthia Lum, Leslie Kennedy, and Alison Shirley were among the first people to perform a review of counterterrorism policies in the United States. Their findings reported a lack of evidence that suggests that anti-terrorism protections such as metal detectors, security screening, and increased surveillance actually reduce the incidence of terrorism. Additionally, a study included in the critical review found that military strikes either had no rebound effect on the level of terrorism in a country or even had a backfiring effect (Andersen, 2015).
With the lack of concrete evidence regarding the overall success of the Iraq war comes a certain public discourse which heavily shapes the perception of American national security. Under President Bush’s administration, Paul Bremer was appointed the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in 2003. In less than two weeks, he issued an order to completely disband the Iraqi military and the creation of a new army free of ties to Saddam’s regime. It was during the next eight years of American occupation that the Iraqi civil unrest, unemployment, and overall regional instability that would fuel the development of ISIS. Bremer’s decision remains masked in mystery since the army likely could have remained in-tact if the military operations were more focused on removing strictly the loyalists from the Iraqi army rather than completely terminating it. According to Jim Pfiffner, a public policy professor from George Mason University, President Bush agreed with military operations officials in the U.S. government that the Iraqi army was crucial to the long-term success and security of the region. It has even been suggested by policy officials that Vice President Dick Cheney may have suggested to disband the Iraqi army. In fact, he mentioned in 2011 that it “may have been a mistake,” although, he never confirmed his participation in the decision. ISIS has grown to control more than 34,000 square miles in 2014 according to IHS Markit, a financial services company, and has claimed almost 100 attacks and may be holding upwards of 5,000 slaves in confinement. “This $2 billion war-machine has seized hundreds of U.S.-built Iraqi military vehicles given to Baghdad by the U.S. government.” (World, 2015). Bremer’s decision single-handedly disbanded the Iraqi army, but it also might have provided ISIS with its war machines and strongest fighters. Newmann’s evolution model asserts that decision making is the result of a multi-party model, influenced by public officials and their counterparts, not just one single person alone. Bremer’s fateful decision mirrors Newmann’s evolution model by suggesting that the decision to disband the Iraqi army was a nonlinear, idiosyncratic approach to streamline traditional decision making processes. President Bush was facing a quickly escalating war and he was harshly condemned for his executive decisions. However, Newmann emphasizes that executive decisions may not have been made by the president so much as the officials employed to aide him, thus suggesting that presidential decision making is much more arbitrary and mysterious than the public assumes (Newmann, 2003).
Looking Ahead
It goes without question to state that the Middle East will remain volatile and unstable for decades to come. Due to the lack of progress towards peace-making between Israel and Palestine, the tension between Sunni and Shiite sectarians in Iraq, and Iran’s continued development of uranium enrichment all provide a fundamentally pessimistic vision of what is to come. As a result, the United States exhibits several reasons to remain involved in the region, but political, econ
omic, or military
involvement may lead to further resentment and regional instability. The complex yet vital relationships between middle eastern and countries in the United States will likely serve as a compelling interest to maintain sociable relations for the sake of preserving mutual benefits such as alliance relationships, oil prices, and the preservation of democracy in the Middle East. The intersection of regional instability in Iraq and grave American interests in the state of the region have proven so far that policy makers will continue to promote peaceful permanence.
However, the processes used to organize and develop these decisions are certainly complex. The ideologies of both president Bush and President Obama can be analyzed according to Newmann’s evolution model, which asserts that the domestic political climate, organizational structure of his administration, and natural tendencies to endorse or promote personal ideologies will influence the specific decision making tendencies of each executive. Over time, these influences do change but will fundamentally remain the same conceptually.