Business Strategies Instructions

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Discuss how a decision made by the White House with respect to Iraq might have been affected based on each below strategy

Please provide a detailed response to each below listed Strategy in response to how a decision made by the White House with respect to Iraq might have been affected with the following strategies:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/view/

Strategy 1: Use Decision-Analysis Tools (3 paragraph response)

First and foremost, (you) must understand that in respect to George W. Bush's tenure in the White House, his decision to invade Iraq was driven by neoconservatives who had served as "hawkish" figures for war for three Republican administrations that spanned the course of twenty years. Therefore, any strategic plan that did not align with their version of a new era of American power that entailed the use of preemptive invasions and war would not have been supported. These hawks consisted of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz, who had been advocating for the removal of Saddam Hussein for over 20 years since the first invasion of Iraq.

Therefore, these individuals were not open to any type of alternative strategic approach that ran counter to their viewpoint that American foreign policy needed a dramatic shift toward preemption as opposed to containment. If the George W. Bush's administration would have implemented the decision analysis tools strategy, there could have figuratively been a better debate about whether or not the invasion was correct, but the outcome would have been the same.

This strategy would have required the administration to account for opposing views that were offered by Powell and the "doves" who still believed in containment and wanted to evaluate all relevant information pertinent to the decision to invade Iraq as opposed to focusing on alleged weapons of mass destruction. This strategy requires the assessment of any challenges and uncertainties that are associated with a possible plan as well as the willingness to listen to alternative solutions that could possibly be more effective by creating an influence diagram.

If this strategy had been implemented, the fears that George H.W. Bush had about the consequences for the region if Saddam had been removed from power during the first invasion of Iraq, would have had to be entertained by the neocons, but as I stated previously, the neocons did not have to entertain any ideas following 9/11. Prior to 9/11, the neocons and doves such as Colin Powell were in a quagmire for control over what would be become known as the "Bush Doctrine", and the use of decision-analysis tools would have been feasible, but after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the neocons had free reign to influence the war narrative. No strategy would have changed their influence or power.

Strategy 2: Acquire Expertise (3 paragraph response)

Acquiring Expertise as a strategy was already used by George W. Bush's administration as many of his top advisors had a plethora of expertise on the Middle East because of their service for previous Republican Presidential administrations. Therefore, they weren't novice individuals who were engaged in policy-making based upon a lack of expert knowledge, but there were two warring factions who had been interpreting information about the Middle East and Iraq differently for over 20 years.

These two warring factions consisted of the previously mentioned "Hawks" or neoconservatives and the "Doves". Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld were at the helm of the Hawks along with Cheney, and all three had played pivotal roles in Iraq policy as well as the first Gulf War. The head of the "Doves" was Colin Powell, who was the Chairman of the Joints' Chief of Staff during the first Gulf War, and was the primary reason that the Hawks' couldn't push President George H.W. ...