Realist, Liberal And Constructivist Approachs To War On Terror In Iraq

War on terror in Iraq is an appropriate case to evaluate IR theories whether they can explain it or not. The aim of this his article is to discuss why and how US decided to invade Iraq in terms of realist, liberal and constructivist approach and why the US waged war because the War on Terror in Iraq by the US in 2003 provides us a significant case to work on. To understand how it happened and if and how ideas shaped foreign policy of the United States, this article will discuss neo-conservatism, realist, liberal and constructivist approaches. As an ideational and ideological approach, neo-conservatism shaped US foreign policy during the Iraq War in 2000-2008. Although only realism and liberalism could not explain the decision of the invasion of Iraq and their scholars criticized the invasion; constructivists successfully carried out role of ideas and ideologies on behaviors of states and foreign policy. The Iraq War has been a relevant to examine constructivists’ arguments. Constructivist approach considers political outcomes as products of a complex interaction of material. Therefore constructivist theory will be applied to inquire causal relationship between invasion of Iraq and social construction of ideas. This study has shown that constructivism presents a relevant framework for understanding motivations of the Iraq War.

Keywords

Invasion of Iraq, Neo-conservatism, Realism, Liberalism, Constructivism, War on terror.