Geographies of war, occupation, resistance, and terrorism Essay - 1

Geographies of war, occupation, resistance, and terrorism - Essay Example It goes without saying that most the Arab World has thrown their weight behind Palestine while the US and its Western allies are behind Israel. In June 7, 1981, Israel had attacked and crippled a nuclear reactor before it became operational in a town near Baghdad. Although it claimed self defense, it came under intense criticism even from US their main allies. Much later, the same strategy was used by US to lead a foreign invasion on Iraq under the guise of different reasons (Kramer & Michalowski, 2005). This paper then will try to answer the question why the US invaded Iraq under Bush administration. Plausible Explanation for the Invasion There are many official justifications that were offered by the Bush administration for its invasion of Iraq. The three main ones were that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, had strong ties with al-Qaeda which all turned to be false after the invasion. The third one was that the sectarian US government was trying to bring democracy in Baghdad. However, unofficially, there are other plausible explanations include control of oil fields and business and for strategic interests. Another explanation that has been overtly explored in the recent past is the assertion that the Israel government and its key supporters in US government caused the Iraq Invasion (Mearsheimer & Walt, 2006). Israel has been over the recent past been dominated by right wing governments and their policies have been supported by their US supporters and have led increased tensions in the Arab world and needless human suffering. However, the idea of invading Iraq is not one of their agendas because it had no value to Israel and if anything it only increased hostility towards Israel in the region (Robert, 2002). It is true that this invasion was supported by many Israel sympathizers and a majority of US Congress members of Jewish origin voted in favor of war resolution together with the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Indeed, AIPAC had long been touted as an ardent lobbying and supporter of US invasion of Iraq. Although AIPAC had enormous influence on the matters pertaining to the Israel-Palestinian conflict when it came to congressional voting, it had no role in lobbying for the invasion of Iraq. This was largely due to the knowledge that there was an enormous bipartisan support within the US government to invade oil rich Iraq. There were more powerful interests by the US government than the interests of AIPAC in this country like the arms industry, oil deals among other special interests. As such, these interests from the US government and other lobbyist far outweighed the interests of the Zionist lobby groups (Stephen, 2013). Many people and political analysts have tried to point to Israel as the prime suspect for the invasion by quoting many American Zionists and Israeli officials. However, those who are quoted in support of the invasion had expressed their sentiments after the decision to invade Iraq had been arr ived at in 2002. The invasion intended back then was a two thronged attack which later would be extended to Iran later. What this means is that the Israel lobby groups and the Israeli government was willing to procure public support for an invasion campaign which the Bush led US government had independently determined to undertake. In addition, the Bush administration was an ardent supporter of Israel course of actions in its