Similarities
By Nick Anderson
Sun, Jan 11, 2026 • 10:39 PM
Bush’s march toward the Iraq War cycled through a grab bag of justifications—weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, humanitarian rescue, democracy promotion—none of which survived sustained scrutiny. The invasion ultimately revealed itself less as a response to a specific threat than as an assertion of American power in the wake of 9/11, driven by impulse, certainty, and an untested belief that force would sort out the details later.
