Transatlantic Relations, the United Nations, and the Iraq Crisis
Keywords:
Iraq, George Bush, Tony Blair, Foreign PolicyAbstract
This article assesses the Blair administration’s attempts to convince the Bush administration to pursue diplomacy in the 2002-2003 Iraq crisis.  I argue that the Blair administration emphasized diplomacy partially for domestic political reasons but also because they believed that diplomacy was legally necessary, crucial for restraining American unilateralism, and vital for bolstering the UN and the transatlantic alliance.  The Blair administration was partially successful in convincing the U.S. to work more multilaterally.  However, in exchange, they committed to supporting the U.S. use of force against Iraq if diplomacy failed, thereby losing much of their leverage over U.S. policy.
Downloads
Published
2015-08-09
Issue
Section
Articles
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).