Protests against the Iraq War

As soon as people became aware of the intentions of the United States and the Coalition of the Willing to start the Iraq War, a popular movement emerged to protest against the Iraq War. Opponents of the war organised a number of large-scale street protests including the worldwide anti-war protest on February 15, 2003, before major combat operations began. The London anti-war protest organised by the Stop the War Coalition had two million attendees. The February 15 protests have been recorded by the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest protest ever.

Ideological background

The protest movement drew on a number of ideological sources including pacifism, Islamism, anti-Americanism and strong feelings regarding the process by which the U.S. and the Coalition allies started the war unilaterally rather than through the processes of the United Nations and international laws and treaties.

Pacificism

Representing the pacifist opposition to war were groups like the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, who helped organise the 2003 London protests with the Stop the War Coalition, and Quaker religious groups.

Islamist themes

Many Muslims opposed the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and some of that opposition went far enough that it has been described as "Islamist": the Muslim Association of Britain - a Stop the War Coalition member - is not widely considered to be radical or Islamist, but the protest movement has included people who have been influenced by radical Islamist groups and clerics such as Abu Hamza al-Masri.

Anti-globalization

Many feel that the protest movement was driven by anti-American and anti-globalization sentiment: much of the protest movement on the left was involved in the anti-globalization rallies against the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund. The famous Battle for Seattle in 1999 is a prime example of this anti-globalization movement. Indymedia, a network of websites and independent media outlets set up and used heavily by the anti-globalization movement was used to promote the anti-war protest movement.

U.S. unilateralism

Opposition related to the process of getting UN resolutions - or the failure of the US and the Coalition to seek such resolutions in favor of unilateral action - drew others into the protest movement including a number of lawyers and intellectuals. Here, the objection was evidentialist rather than pacifist or "ideological" - the objectors argued that the U.S. and the Coalition had not presented the necessary evidence to either the population or the international community.

There was much more UN and international consent to the Afghanistan War (2001-). For the first time, the Common Defense article of the NATO charter was invoked.

U.S. protests

While street protests were less evident in the run-up to the war than in Europe, there were still significant policy debates. Some preceded the Iraq War, although were subsequent to the 9-11 Attack and Afghanistan War (2001-).

Neoconservative national strategy

Sometimes called the Bush doctrine as described in the document National Security Strategy of the United States (2002), and certainly described by neoconservative theoreticians, the United States had adopted a policy of preventive war.

While the war was not the only factor in the 2006 Congressional and 2008 Presidential elections, it contributed to the

Congressional

The U.S. Congress was by no means unanimous in granting authorization for the war.