By Jim Reed, CBC (Canada): excerpts below
But the international process was too slow for an impatient administration in Washington. Spokesmen cited urgent security concerns, worries about ready-to-use Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and even fear of an Iraqi "mushroom cloud."
The administration eventually used these concerns to derail the UN process, to denigrate the weapons inspectors and to seize power from the world community. Inexplicably, the American president decided to ignore the world and deal with Saddam using brute force.
Until then, the U.S. had both power and authority in abundance. But from the moment of its unilateral exercise of power, its authority began to erode. More here
The United States claimed to have destroyed the regime of Saddam Hussein through the use of power in a noble cause: the destruction of a brutal dictatorship. However it was also a departure from the original purpose of United Nations Security Council resolution 1441: to search out and destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
If Saddam did indeed possess WMD, he didn't use them against the U.S. and its coalition partners, and none have been found since the conflict began. Those facts have not diminished American power, but they have had the effect of further diminishing American authority.
Central to any concept of power/force is the idea that its measured use can bring about a desired set of circumstances. One stated U.S. goal in Iraq is the establishment of democracy in that country. But power alone is not enough to inspire and build a democratic state.
That's particularly true in much of the Muslim world where there is an inextricable link between religion and the state; it is the creed that bestows true authority. Islam is a faith that encompasses all aspects of a society, with minimal separation of church and state. Without adherence to the faith, the state is without real authority over the people.
Those who dreamed of a springtime flowering of democracy in Iraq are advised to reflect on the early skepticism of Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to the first president Bush. He asked: "What's going to happen the first time we hold an election in Iraq and it turns out the radicals win? What do you do? We're surely not going to let them take over."
Today, the Americans exercise power in Iraq. But without a significant change in approach they may never acquire sufficient authority to establish the healthy democracy they say they want. More here