Editing Hegemony or Survival (section)

===The Bush administration and the invasion of Iraq===
Chomsky argues that the Republican [[neoconservatism|neoconservative]] administration of President [[George W. Bush]], elected to the presidency in 2001, differed from earlier administrations in one key respect: it was open about adhering to the Imperial Grand Strategy, outright declaring that it would be willing to use force to ensure U.S. global hegemony despite international condemnation. Chomsky sees this as being in contrast to previous administrations, who had never explicitly informed the public that they adhered to such a doctrine. Instead, earlier administrations had discussed their intentions within elite circles which were known only to specialists or readers of dissident literature. Thus, where once only the socio-economic elite and their left-wing critics knew of the Imperial Grand Strategy, now the entire American populace are potentially aware of it. He considers this a "significant difference."{{sfn|Chomsky|2003|p=16}}

In Chomsky's view, the invasion of Iraq by a U.S. and U.K. coalition must be seen in the wider context of the U.S. government's Imperial Grand Strategy. He claims that the Iraq invasion fits the three criteria that he has highlighted for being classified as a U.S. target for preventative war. Considering the country "virtually defenseless" against the superior might of the western armed forces, he also notes that securing control of the country would be an important move for the U.S. socio-economic elite, gaining unlimited access to the country's lucrative oil resources and asserting their own military might to intimidate other nations into compliance. He also argued that government and media propaganda also set out to forge an erroneous link between Iraq President Saddam Hussein and [[Al-Qaeda]], playing on the American people's horror of the [[9/11 attacks]]. Furthermore, he stated that they also wrongly claimed that the Iraqi government was developing [[weapons of mass destruction]] to be used against the U.S. or its allies. Chomsky remarks that the 2003 invasion of Iraq is particularly significant because it signals the "new norm" in international relations, and that in future the U.S. might be willing to wage a preventative war against "Iran, Syria, the Andean region, and a number of others."{{sfn|Chomsky|2003|pp=17–22}}