It was hardly morning Without me being woken up by the blast, car bombs exploding somewhere in the city. The hotel windows were taped with thick white tape in a large X to remove pressure waves.
On the ground, American soldiers took control of the entrance to the adjacent hotel. It was protected by high concrete walls, barbed wire and armored cars. It didn’t quite work out for the United States in Iraq. not yet.
This was Baghdad in the spring of 2004. It was clear to all that the US invasion the previous year, with military support from a handful of Western nations, was heading for disaster. Instead of replacing a dictator with democracy as they said, there was civil war, insecurity, and ethnic and religious tensions across the region.
The United States was not only weak in the Middle East as a result of the Iraq war. It also affected the entire Western world system. In a slightly roundabout way, he refers to the war in Ukraine. I’ll come back to that shortly.
The war started 20 years ago, but to understand the world as it was then, we have to start a little earlier. In 2001, the United States suffered one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in the world when al-Qaeda flew several hijacked civilian aircraft into skyscrapers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., killing nearly 3,000 civilians.
The United States at the time was at the height of its power, and the attack shook the nation and the entire world. The United States has received support from NATO under Article 5, which states that an attack on one country is an attack against all. The UN Security Council gave a mandate to attack it when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan where the terrorist organization is based.
Early Exit: Then-US President George W. Bush declared victory and mission accomplished on May 1, 2003 aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.
Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP
parallel to this He urged a group of politicians and intellectuals to attack Iraq as well. The United States and Iraq’s neighbors were also in a long conflict with Saddam Hussein, who then ruled the country as an absolute ruler. He and his Ba’ath Party were responsible for horrific abuses against their own people.
They used chemical weapons to oppress the Kurds in the north of the country and brutally crushed any resistance from the Shiite Muslims in the south or others who stood up against them. They invaded neighboring Kuwait and were under severe UN sanctions.
without evidence Was it also alleged that Iraq also contributed to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and that Saddam Hussein’s regime may have been developing new weapons of mass destruction? Perhaps a nuclear bomb that terrorist groups like al Qaeda could get their hands on?
The regime itself did not provide clear answers, and UN weapons inspectors were not allowed to operate freely. Fierce pressure to invade mounted in Washington.
Where the United States received broad support for going after al Qaeda in Afghanistan, this time the world was more divided. Even the West was not united. There were big demonstrations in the streets. France and Germany strongly warned against going to war.
trying to impress the world That Saddam Hussein’s regime was a threat, the US Secretary of Defense at the time presented the United Nations with photographs from US intelligence that were supposed to prove that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction.
Didn’t help. The United Nations never gave the green light to the invasion. The United States entered the war on March 20, 2003. Norway was one of several Western countries that refrained from following our main ally into a new war.
Mutiny: US Marines Commemorating Fallen Fellow Soldier
Photo: Murat Sezer/AP
After a successful military campaignThe problems started. They had no good plans for what to do next, and were soon fighting on two fronts, against Shiite groups backed by Iran and against Sunni Islamist groups emerging from the old state.
These groups became the starting point for what would develop into the Islamic State at the same time that Iran gradually expanded its power and influence in the region. The Middle East will never be the same again.
Besides, the Iraq war had other consequences. US intelligence on weapons of mass destruction was wrong. They were never found. Nor was there any connection between Saddam Hussein’s regime and the terrorist attacks in 2001. The US went to war anyway without a UN resolution.
Combined with failure on the ground, the war weakened both American power and international institutions.
It also caused mistrust and mistrust To the United States and American intelligence that went on for all the years that followed, and here we come back to Ukraine. US intelligence actively shared information ahead of last year’s major Russian attack on Ukraine.
It was supposed to be right, but many were skeptical and wondered if the United States could be trusted this time around. It gave Russia a respite that it otherwise would not have had.
The Iraq war also gives Russia And Vladimir Putin is an easy argument. They are right that the United States did not respect international law when they went to war in Iraq.
Although one cannot justify one’s own abuses with the mistakes of others, this argument has worked well in countries critical of the United States, including in Africa and Latin America.
The Russia-Ukraine war cannot be compared to the Iraq war. Democratic and fraternal people Russia attacked with the goal of capturing the country and expanding its borders, but in the background lies a 20-year-old war that still shapes international politics.
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