Berman argued that the NATO war in the former Yugoslavia in 1999 was justified by the doctrine of "liberal interventionism": an intervention intended to rescue endangered populations from extreme oppression and to promote liberal and democratic freedom. He looked on the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq in the same light. In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, he declined to endorse the Bush administration's policy and warned that it was likely to fail: "we are wielding power without liberalism, which will turn out to be no power at all."