Bailes~Composition 1

Let's say you want to know the causes for our current war in Iraq. You could simply rattle off the official reasons that President Bush gave for going to war in the first place (i.e. weapons of mass destruction, terrorist ties to Al-Qaeda, etc.), but those were reasons for going to war, not causes for invasion. And as far as the Bush version is concerned, the official reasons for deciding to invade have been shown now to be false (see this Newsweek article).

Or let's say you believe that the cause of war was getting rid of a dictator, Saddam. That is America's role in the world, you claim. But what do you do with all the other dictators in the world that we do nothing about? What about North Korea's leader Kim Jong Il?

Now let's say you're of that camp who believes that the whole thing was about oil. Sure, oil may have been a strong reason that was not talked about officially. The Bush Administration is made up of lots of oil and energy people. And America does have an overdependence on oil and what better place to find it than in a country we can convince ourselves to invade so that we rid the world of a vile dictator. But we've fought other wars that had nothing to do with oil. Why this one? The American economy has needed more oil for a long time, it is true, but why Iraq? There may be some truth to this argument that oil lubed the way to an invasion in Iraq, but it is not clear that oil is the primary reason for justifying a massive invasion.

Now it gets interesting. And obviously the reasons are going to be debated. That's where cause-and-effect analysis comes in handy. In fact, if a cause-and-effect analysis had been done more completely before going to war in Iraq, then problems arising daily might have been avoided because they would have been predicted (such as post-invasion occupation) and thus allow for preparation. Nonetheless, with things going badly in Iraq, we can still use a cause-and-effect analysis to look back at what caused the crisis so that we may avoid it in the future.

Why can we make these assessments? Because cause-and-effect thinking is the best we have (unless you're some kind of modern-day Nostradamus) of determining past mistakes and future consequences. We may not be perfect or 100% accurate, but we can come approximately close. In fact, cause-and-effect analysis allows us to do two things: (1) Answer to some degree of satisfaction why an event, action, or idea happened, and (2) answer to some degree of satisfaction what happens because of an event, action, or idea.

Now if I asked you to tell me why the Iraq War happened, you might argue that it is because President Bush, as Commander-in-Chief, was decisive. You've heard the old saying that "the buck stops here," haven't you? So the president took the initiative. While Bush's decisiveness was necessary or essential for war to happen, it was not alone enough in and of itself to make the war in Iraq materialize. For the war (as with most wars) needed military forces to accomplish an invasion. No military force, no invasion.

This brings up two conditions in determining cause and effect: necessary and sufficient conditions. A necessary condition is one that must be satisfied for the result to happen. Obviously, the U.S. President's decisiveness was a necessary or essential condition for war in Iraq. The U.S. Constitution gives him that power as president. His decisiveness in the matter of war commanded armies to battle. But his decisiveness was not sufficient to bring about an invasion. He needed an armed forces adequate enough to go into Iraq. A sufficient condition is a one that, if satisfied, will bring about a definite result. In this case, American military forces invading the country of Iraq was a sufficient condition since a military invasion is in fact an act of war.

Were there any other necessary or sufficient conditions for the war in Iraq?