Parallels in Preemptive War Rhetoric: Reagan on Libya; Bush 43 on Iraq

Abstract

During the 1980s and the 1990s, scholars in the field of rhetorical studies presented presidential war rhetoric as a genre of public discourse. More recently, some have questioned the genre's continued relevance given the current challenges of U.S. warfare. This essay examines whether preemption conducted in the context of the war on terror alters or reinforces the conventional substantive and stylistic expectations of war rhetoric. Analyzing the public communication strategies of the Bush administration on Iraq and the Reagan administration on the bombing of Libya, it demonstrates that despite changes in the situational exigencies, the nation's leadership uses a heavy reliance on strategic misrepresentation to maintain compliance with the genre's expectations.

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