Zunes publicly doubted prior to the March 2003 invasion that Iraq still had operational weapons of mass destruction and predicted that, "sooner or later, the American public will realize that a U.S. invasion of Iraq has been a disaster" since "such efforts at hegemony inevitably spawn their own resistance". He also predicted that a U.S. invasion and occupation could stir up ethnic and sectarian conflict would make it "difficult to establish a widely accepted and stable regime" and that rather than transform the Middle East to be more stable and democratic, he warned that a U.S. invasion and occupation would increase terrorism and Islamic extremism and that it would "spawn more bitterness, hatred, and violence and will greatly retard economic development, political reform, and reconciliation in the resulting chaos and backlash that will likely follow".