Marching in time: alliance politics, synchrony and the case for war in Iraq, 2002–2003

Abstract

This article considers how three countries—the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia—approached the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 by examining how the leaders’ decision-making interacted, the commonalities of their policy-making processes, and the approach to policy justification taken in terms of their domestic political environments. In particular, it examines the extent to which their claims as to why invasion was necessary went in synchrony. Having decided on war, all three national leaders sought to persuade their publics of the moral imperative for invasion and the immediacy of the threat that needed to be eradicated, and each made secret intelligence public in so doing. The selective use of intelligence allowed the politial leaders to shift the focus of the blame from policy-makers to intelligence accuracy when the immediate threat from weapons of mass destruction turned out to be illusory.