The Origins of the Second Gulf War Journal of Social Sciences; ISSN: 2233-3878; Volume 3, Issue 2, 2014 39 The Origins of the Second Gulf War Shalva KIKALISHVILI * Abstract The purpose of the paper is to determine the most infuential political advisors in the formulation of foreign and military policy leading up to the Second Gulf War. Using declassifed and historical documents, this paper examines the infuential role of those neo-conservatives and war lobbyists who strongly infuenced George W. Bush in the planning, strategizing, and later launching of “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” The paper highlights the author’s perspective on the Second Persian Gulf War. It is based on the research conducted through analysis and discussion of existing political documents and various standpoint theo- ries of some historians. The objective is to create a vivid picture of the US Government Plans towards Iraq and the involvement of war lobbyists and major decision-makers in this process during the Presidency of George W. Bush. The sole aim of the article is to describe and analyze US Foreign policy in connection with Iraq before the Second Gulf War, as the topic has not been explored in depth yet and is still open for discussion due to present day situation in Iraq. Keywords: America, George W. Bush, Gulf War, national security, Neoconservatives, Iraq. Introduction Key White House policy-makers will be identifed based on the documents, media coverage, and existing literature. Why the United States decided to invade Iraq and what the motivation was behind this decision will be answered from the author’s perspective. Declassifed sources and histori- cal documents will support the author’s claim that the most infuential policy advisors surrounding President Bush were Neoconservatives. Neoconservatives were individuals who strongly infuenced George W. Bush in the planning, strate- gizing, and later launching of the Second Persian War. Their goal – defeating Saddam Hussein and his tyranny and bring- ing hegemony to the USA – was conducted under the um- brella of “exporting democracy”. As one of the leading scholars states, “to understand what happened we need to deeply and critically enter into the hopes and fears of those who took the country into the war” (Jervis, 2011, p. 44). Hence, the close emanation of neo-conservative philosophy and individual personalities linked with neo-conservatism will be examined. Twelve years after the US invasion of Iraq, huge num- bers of declassifed documents can be found in the National Security Archive of The George Washington University (NSAGW). CIA briefngs and reports, everyday Memos of the offcials, confdential correspondence, FBI interrogation and study group reports have fnally been made public. These documents have not been examined thoroughly by feld researchers and were kept declassifed until just recently. Almost all of these documents were previously classifed as Top Secret or Secret. Consequently, the sources examined in our work will shed light on the motivation and infuence of Neo-conservative philosophy and Second Persian Gulf War. Methods A complex study based on historical method was conducted. Data were obtained mainly from numerous internet sources of declassifed documents and libraries, on-line articles, journals and hard copy books. All sources were analyzed ac- cording to the appropriate procedures established in histori- cal methodology. Information was processed synthetically. This enabled the researchers to examine and understand the research topic correctly. Results The purpose of the paper is to determine the most infuential political advisors in the formulation of foreign and military policy leading up to the Second Gulf War. Research and his- torical documents strongly indicate leading Neoconserva- tives Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and Richard Cheney in cooperation with Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice were responsible for promoting American military power in the Middle East. Part One: War Lobbyists Iraq always held a point of interest in George W. Bush’s politics. During his presidential campaign he stated that “Building durable peace will require strong alliances … It will require frmness with regimes like North Korea and Iraq – regimes that hate our values and resent our success. I will address all these priorities in the future” (The Citadel, * An Instructor of Humanities at the Department of General Education, American College of the Middle East, Al-Kuwait, Kuwait and Ph.D. student, Faculty of Humanities, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University. Tbilisi, Georgia. E-mail: shalvakikalishvili@yahoo.com