In most circumstances, “We told you so” is a classless statement. But in this case, it’s justified. In 2003, in the largest global protest in human history, millions of us marched in the world’s streets, loudly proclaiming that invading Iraq would be an unmitigated disaster. Meanwhile, Israel’s neocon loyalists achieved exactly what they wanted: a perpetual nightmare of internecine conflict. While Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser dreamt up the ‘Clean Break’ war in 1996, long before the Second Intifada, surely part of the motivation to pull the trigger was revenge for Saddam Hussein’s financial support for Palestinian suicide bombers.
Owen Jones writes in The Guardian:
The catastrophic results of the Iraq invasion are often portrayed as having been impossible to predict, and only inevitable with the benefit of hindsight. If only to prevent future calamities from happening, this is a myth that needs to be dispelled. The very fact that the demonstration on that chilly February day in 2003 was the biggest Britain had ever seen, is testament to the fact that disaster seemed inevitable to so many people…
The commentators who cheered on the conflict, far from being driven from public life are still feted: still writing columns, still dispensing advice in TV studios, still hosting thinktank breakfasts…
In a way, opponents of the war were wrong. We were wrong because however disastrous we thought the consequences of the Iraq war, the reality has been worse. The US massacres in Fallujah in the immediate aftermath of the war, which helped radicalise the Sunni population, culminating in an assault on the city with white phosphorus. The beheadings, the kidnappings and hostage videos, the car bombs, the IEDs, the Sunni and Shia insurgencies, the torture declared by the UN in 2006 to be worse than that under Saddam Hussein, the bodies with their hands and feet bound and dumped in rivers, the escalating sectarian slaughter, the millions of displaced civilians, and the hundreds of thousands who died: it has been one never-ending blur of horror since 2003.
Meanwhile, Israel’s American neocon supporters got exactly what they wanted: a reshaping of the Middle East through pre-emptive warfare, imposed destabilization, and chaos. Brian Whitaker in the Guardian:
For the hawks, disorder and chaos sweeping through the region would not be an unfortunate side-effect of war with Iraq, but a sign that everything is going according to plan.
In their eyes, Iraq is just the starting point – or, as a recent presentation at the Pentagon put it, “the tactical pivot” – for re-moulding the Middle East on Israeli-American lines.
This reverses the usual approach in international relations where stability is seen as the key to peace, and whether or not you like your neighbours, you have to find ways of living with them. No, say the hawks. If you don’t like the neighbours, get rid of them.
The “skittles theory” of the Middle East – that one ball aimed at Iraq can knock down several regimes – has been around for some time on the wilder fringes of politics but has come to the fore in the United States on the back of the “war against terrorism”.
Its roots can be traced, at least in part, to a paper published in 1996 by an Israeli thinktank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. Entitled “A clean break: a new strategy for securing the realm”, it was intended as a political blueprint for the incoming government of Binyamin Netanyahu. As the title indicates, it advised the right-wing Mr Netanyahu to make a complete break with the past by adopting a strategy “based on an entirely new intellectual foundation, one that restores strategic initiative and provides the nation the room to engage every possible energy on rebuilding Zionism …”
The paper set out a plan by which Israel would “shape its strategic environment”, beginning with the removal of Saddam Hussein and the installation of a Hashemite monarchy in Baghdad.
In 2003, a small number of voices on the liberal left and anti-neocon conservative right questioned what was, at least in large part, a war for Israel. Patrick Buchanan wrote:
Though we have given Israel $20,000 for every Jewish citizen, Israel refuses to stop building the settlements that are the cause of the Palestinian intifada… Israel suborned Jonathan Pollard to loot our secrets and refuses to return the documents, which would establish whether or not they were sold to Moscow… When Clinton tried to broker an agreement at Wye Plantation between Israel and Arafat, Bibi Netanyahu attempted to extort, as his price for signing, release of Pollard, so he could take this treasonous snake back to Israel as a national hero…
Though we have said repeatedly that we admire much of what this president has done, he [Bush II] will not deserve re-election if he does not jettison the neoconservatives’ agenda of endless wars on the Islamic world that serve only the interests of a country other than the one he was elected to preserve and protect.
Thanks, Matthew.
“In 2003, in the largest global protest in human history, millions of us marched in the world’s streets, loudly proclaiming that invading Iraq would be an unmitigated disaster. Meanwhile, Israel’s neocon loyalists achieved exactly what they wanted: a perpetual nightmare of internecine conflict.”
What does this say about our “democracies”, about our voices? For me, this is a question that every single American and member of the “coalition” needs to ask themselves. How can the wishes of one teensy little belligerent state and its loyalists prevail over the wishes and lives of millions of people?
Pat Buchanan is disgustingly wrong on so many things, but in this, he is absolutely dead on right here.
Ok, Iraq didn’t have MDW, but the US-led coalition overthrown a bloody dictator who oppressed, massacred and gassed his own people.
Ok– we had no right to go in and overthrow anybody, especially since we armed said ‘dictator’ with WMD.
The war was based on lies, drummed up by neocons. Some of us literally HATE being lied to. A lot of us recognized the lies, others did not. Either way, the neocons went for ‘shock and awe’. All to our eternal shame.
A lot of the motivation is several reasons really and they are FACTS!! Saddam had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks neither did Afghanistan. However, this was planned long before 9/11, seven middle eastern countries were planned to be attacked by our evil Govt. Saddam after being an ally of the US, decided to call on all the Muslims countries to ONLY accept Gold for currency and to drop the US Dollar.. But EU and US could not swallow that. So thy called for regime change, that did not work so the invasion was planned with the media propaganda of “Democracy” “Human “Rights Issue” (This is a sad joke, if they were concerned about human rights they would not watch the Human Rights Horror of the Zionist on Palestinians)
Than Afghanistan was for the opium and other resources that they have, if anyone is in denial of that, do the research and get the facts. Libya, Gaddafi announced the same thing years later, going to Gold Currency and he too announced that to the Arab countries. All the Sudden he was asked to step down because of human rights issues, and Libya needed democracy.
What is probably going to happen, is all this is going to back fire and the US will be embargo on Oil and kicked out from the entire Middle East. The elite empire will come crashing down to all involved… God is watching, and allowing these events, but what I do know and believe in, is that God, punishes severely. Look at the Crusaders, how powerful they were and how badly they were defeated several times.
The US needs to realize that Democracy in America, is not the same democracy they want in the middle east. The religious values are followed and people do not want this worldly life, they want to follow their religion and stick to the Law God ordained them too. Look at Syria, they failed… They go in destroy sovereign countries, go on a mass murdering spree, and think these people are going to forget. I love my country, but I hate my Government, because they are working for their pockets and ego and do not give a damn about humanity and respecting others rights to make their own choices on how they are running their country. I believe the approval of our Govt was extremely low, and to be honest the polls are exaggerating a bit, try 10% approve of our Govt. and those are all the big wigs who are profiting from all this. I do not see Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, and others bombing us to change regime. It is sad, because the entire world lost respect for America, and when I say America, I say the Government, because people do not have a problem with the Americans, as they view us as victims too.