This article analyzes the foreign policy decision-making process that led Chile not to support the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It states that President Ricardo Lagos made the decision a month before notifying the United States. The decision was based on Lagos’ perceptions about the inevitability of the war and the inconsistence of evidence regarding the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. These perceptions were later confirmed comparing via analogical reasoning Colin Powell’s and Adlai Stevenson’s presentations before the UN Security Council.
This research is based on interviews and statements made by some of the main actors involved in the decision-making process.
Cristóbal Bywaters C., Universidad Alberto Hurtado
Licenciado en Ciencia Política y Relaciones Internacionales de la Universidad Alberto Hurtado; primer lugar en el Concurso de Ensayos sobre Política Exterior de Chile, organizado por ADICA, en 2012.
Bywaters C., C. (2014). Ricardo Lagos says «NO» to Irak invasion in 2003: the foreign policy decision-making process in Chile. Estudios Internacionales, 46(177), Pág. 65–88. https://doi.org/10.5354/0719-3769.2014.30869
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