The Metapolitics of the 2002 Iraq Debate: Public Policy and the Network Imaginary

The September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center was an event that inaugurated a "War on Terror." This essay constitutes a productive rhetorical analysis and critique of the 2002 congressional debate over Iraq in an effort to open a metapolitics. Congressional debate is read as an intertextual extension of administration rhetoric pitting fear appeals lit up through a network imaginary against pragmatic policy questions. The reflexive rhetoric constituting a national policy debate at the federal level is discussed, and the outcomes of common cause and political cover are critiqued.