Topic 15 (Iraq) Historians

Question 1

Jill Lepore (7)

Answer 1

• These Truths
• 9/11 was gravely significant to US foreign policy and politics
• societal divisions despite professed unity
• Tech rev contributed to ‘political disequilibrium’
• ‘crisis of American moral authority’
• terrorism was a ‘disruptive innovation’ that mirrored technology
• curtailed liberty via technology (Patriot Act)

Question 2

Andrew Preston

Answer 2

• Iraq as contemporary history
• Places Iraq within a history of US intervention
• Criticises oversimplification in comparison with Vietnam
• US exceptionalism highlights the cultural causes of the Iraq War
• Highlights Iraq as a major catalyst/the trigger for the collapse of Pax Americana
• Clear immediate decline in popular support reminiscent of Vietnam
• reminiscent of White Man’s Burden and Wilsonian Moment (longer trend

Question 3

Richard Haass

Answer 3

• a world in dissaray
• suggests that disorder has replaced the order of the 80s/90s
• suggests that the last 25 years have been fundamentally distinct

Question 4

Andrew Bacevich

Answer 4

• the limits of power
• implemented ‘Long War’ post-9/11
• suggests oil, patriotic rage, Israel are all insufficient explanations
• US FP reflects the domestic turmoil and a dogged pursuit of an undefined ‘freedom’
• the perceived failure to ‘win’ the Long Wars highlights the illusory nature of Iraq’s declared victory

Question 5

Melvyn Leffler

Answer 5

• 9/11 in retrospect
• 9/11 was not as transformational as many suggest, and ‘rooted in the past’ (like Truman and the Korean War)
• ‘preventive war’ was not a new policy as Cuba 1961 and DR 1965 show
• The policy of ‘path of action’ was reflected in Clinton, Reagan, JFK, and even Teddy Roosevelt’s corolloray to the Monroe Doctrine

Question 6

Helen Thompson

Answer 6

energy defined and shaped geopolitics in the Middle East through modern history
impending oil crisis fears spurred on decisions around Iraq

Question 7

Richard Crockatt

Answer 7

• after 9/11: Cultural Dimensions of American Global Power
• crockatt supports the cultural theory that Preston suggests

Question 8

Samuel Huntington

Answer 8

• clash of civilisations
• the primary axis of conflict in the 21st century will be along cultural lines