Posted on 03/20/2023 4:05:57 AM PDT by FarCenter
Twenty years ago, the United States invaded Iraq, with then-president George W Bush describing it as a necessary act “to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.”
A few weeks later, Bush boasted that the war was a success because US troops had ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and routed his army. Bush landed on an American aircraft carrier and wore a Tom Cruise-style, Top Gun Air US Force outfit – thus orchestrating the most grandiose photo op in US history.
“The tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free,” he announced as he spoke beneath a broad banner that proclaimed, “Mission Accomplished.”
It didn’t take long for the “Accomplished” boast to fall apart. Before Bush left office, he mounted a “surge” of troops to battle Islamic and Saddam-remnant insurgents. Chaos continued almost uninterrupted.
Much US commentary since the invasion has focused on the blunders, false premises and the subsequent inability to stabilize a country riven by civil conflict and corruption as well as subject to outside meddling from arch-enemy Iran. In effect, much of the critique is the political science equivalence of naval gazing.
A share of attention is paid, though perhaps not enough, to possibly negative regional impacts. Almost none, at least initially, of the attention focused on the important effects on important outsiders, namely Russia and China. Those omissions should count as further blunders.
Take the case of Saudi Arabia, which from the start categorically refused participation. “We do not accept that this war should threaten Iraq’s unity or sovereignty,” a top official said.
Saudi Arabia did permit US warplanes to use Saudi air bases, but relations had changed: Saudi Arabia slowly but surely increased its links with China and Russia, the latter of which is an associate member of OPEC.
“The Saudis have emphasized in recent years that they seek to avoid entanglement in what is referred to in the US as ‘great power competition’,” said Gerald Feierstein, a former US ambassador to Yemen. “Their interests, the Saudis have made clear, have focused on maintaining strong relations with their main security partner, the US; their number one economic partner, China; and their key partner in OPEC+, Russia.”
Then there’s Russia and China. The Iraq War drastically altered their views toward the United States and the changes are now dramatically playing out in the field of international affairs.
During the 1990-91 Gulf War, when the US spearheaded the ouster of Iraqi invasion forces from Kuwait, Russian President Vladimir Putin aided the Americans by easing the passage of military overflights over Russia.
It was a maneuver designed both to show his backing for the “war on terror,” and to ease Western criticism of Russia’s harsh war against separatists in Chechnya.
Putin perceived the Iraq War that began in 2003 as a breach of international law and an attack on a government with which Moscow had maintained relations and commercial dealings.
Moreover, Putin was seeking to rein in America’s unilateral tendencies. He had opposed President Bill Clinton’s air war against Slavic Serbia in favor of secessionist Kosovo.
In March 2003, he called for a halt to the Iraq War. “If we allow the law of the fist to replace international law, by which the strong are always right and has the right to do anything. One of the basic principles of international law will be called into question – the principle of the inalienable sovereignty of countries,” he said.
Putin called it correctly in 2003 as did DJT. The biggest failure of our policy, after commitment of course, was the illegal deposing of Trump. Given another six months, Trump would have brought peace with honor to Afghanistan as well as Iraq. Insurrectionist coups have consequences.
In the old days I would have responded with a rebuttal to this “article” but now that I know Bush was a filthy scumbag globalist who NEVER defended his base of supporters (you know, conservatives) Bush and his warmongering neocons (Dick Cheney) can go to hell.
Bush relished stabbing conservatives in the back. Never said a single word about Obama’s destructive policies (I owe him my silence) but couldn’t wait to lambast and attack Trump.
Now Bush (The Chimp) can rot with his legacy torn to pieces and NO ONE to defend him.
(Tagline since Nov. 2000. Never saw a reason to change it and it's more relevant today than ever. Learn it, love it, live it.)
IBTAN
Yes, and no.
George W. Bush did fly war planes in the Texas Air National Guard.
Obviously, no combat experience, but there are a lot of fatal military aircraft accidents every year that do not involve combat.
The US nation building has been a total failure. There are many reasons, but an obvious one is how we pushed abhorrent behaviors on people who did not want or accept our ways. Woke and gay was pushed in the middle east and Afghanistan.
I will never forget that that giant mural of George Floyd painted on a building is Afghanistan. We weren’t even out of the airport before the Taliban had people with paint buckets and brushes out there painting over that mural.
Maybe we taught girls to read, but what kind of brainwashing crap did we provide them to read?
Then we up and left them so we could pursue the NWO adventure to get rid of Russia and left them to be brutalized by the Taliban, We left the Taliban with loads of weapons of war too.
Welcome to the Light, Flavious_Maximus. Your clear thinking will be needed going forward.
Many Freepers agrees with this article even back in 2003. It’s really sad to see how much has been lost here on FR because so many of them were banished or self-exiled back in those days.
Re: 3 - President Bush’s policies regarding global power and the placement of democracy in many areas of the world were not just foisted upon the public at the last moment. He spoke it about often. It was common knowledge then.
I say placement, as that is what democracy was in the early years in Iraq - placed into that country. Afghanistan is, well, a different matter.
The Bushie adventure of “Nation Building” in Iraq opened the door to electing an anti-Semitic race grifter, named Barack Obama, in 2008.
The US did not fail in Iraq.
Saddam is gone and the country is now ruled by the people and their internal centauries old squabbles.
“...there are a lot of fatal military aircraft accidents every year that do not involve combat...”
I recall an Osprey on a training mission that crashed and killed 21 Marines!
My tagline reflects my situation since I had my “come to MAGA moment in 2016”. Prior to that I was busy stooging and getting this blood, that refuses to wash away, all the way up to my elbows. Never again for me.
Just as US failure in Vietnam opened the door for 9/11 and the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars.
Both failures were political, not military.
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