Effects of 9/11 on Iraq/Iran Analytical Essay by Top Papers

The terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 were arguably the single most defining event in recent global politics, for as a result of these attacks the United States intervened directly, as never before, in the politics of the Muslim world. This paper will explore the effects of these attacks on the regional politics of Iraq and Iran; two nations with a complex, and often violent, joint history. The thesis will be argued, with reference to a range of critical materials, that the primary effect of these attacks on the regional politics of Iraq and Iran lay in the fact that the attacks transformed the United States' international relations paradigm from realist to revolutionary. As will be seen, this transformation not only led to the American invasion of Iraq, the toppling of its Baathist regime, and the rise of the country's Shi'ite majority to power, but also to the rise of Shi'ite power throughout the region in general.