On today's episode, we cover the timeline of the decision making process that went into the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Understanding the decision making process is super important for anyone that want to get into the field of foreign policy or government because Iraq is a case study of what not to do. But the timeline starts long before in the 1980's when we decided to support Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War. This spurred decades of policy that culminated in the invasion of Iraq and one of the most tragic foreign policy disasters in American History. We interview Michael J. Mazarr who is a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. Previously he worked at the U.S. National War College, where he was professor and associate dean of academics; senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; senior defense aide on Capitol Hill; and as a special assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His work includes, “Leap of Faith, Hubris, Negligence, and Americas Greatest Foreign Policy Tragedy.”, “Rethinking Risk in National Security” and “North Korea and the Bomb”.