This volume presents the best contemporary scholarly thinking about why the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, a pivotal event in modern US foreign policy and international politics.

Jane K. Cramer is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Oregon. Her research focuses on the causes of national overestimations of security threats, as well as other aspects of the domestic politics behind foreign policymaking, especially the diversionary theory of war.

A. Trevor Thrall is Associate Professor of Government and Politics and directs the Biodefense graduate program at George Mason University. Much of his work focuses on the intersection of war, news, and public opinion. His recent work has investigated presidential threat inflation, public support for missile defense, and how changes in the news media have affected US foreign policy.

1. Introduction: Why Did the United States Invade Iraq? 2. Explaining the War in Iraq 3. Ideas, American Grand Strategy, and the War in Iraq 4. Ideas and Entrepreneurs: A Constructivist Explanation of the Iraq War 5. Explaining the Iraq War: The Israel Lobby Theory 6. Neoconservatism and American Hegemony 7. Blood for Oil, in Iraq and Elsewhere 8. Oil and the Decision to Invade Iraq 9. Tony Blair Nurtures the Special Relationship 10. In Pursuit of Primacy: Why the United States Invaded Iraq