In the case of the US and its closest ally in the invasion of Iraq, the United Kingdom, dubious intelligence painted Saddam Hussein’s Iraq as a harbourer of al-Qaeda, a hoarder of weapons of mass destruction, and an all-around international bogeyman.Īl-Marashi has firsthand experience of this. The inability to stop the two bellicose powers from attacking sovereign states starkly exposed the weaknesses of the post-World War II international order.īoth Russia and the US went to war off the back of bogus pretexts - alternate realities they created. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality,” the official said.Ĭreating their “own reality” meant ignoring international law and the United Nations Charter that the US and Soviet Union were original signatories to. It also blinded them to inconvenient truths - something neatly encapsulated in what a White House official reportedly told journalist Ron Suskind. Once senior Bush administration officials had made up their minds about invading Iraq, their single-minded determination to topple the Iraqi regime rendered them oblivious to the unintended consequences of war, said analysts. The outcome was the same in both cases - a “dogged national resistance that humbled both powers,” he said. What did Russia think? That the Ukrainians would also welcome them as liberators for overthrowing this so-called ‘fascist regime’.” “The US thought they would be greeted as liberators overthrowing Saddam Hussein, and that didn’t happen. “In the US case they achieved the decapitation, but they really misread the Iraqi population,” says al-Marashi. Both belligerents assumed it would be easy to launch “decapitation” attacks and replace the governments of the countries they were invading with friendly regimes that would simply serve their interests. US President George W Bush announces the end of major combat operations in Iraq on May 1, 2003, on board the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln ‘We create our own reality’īoth the US-led coalition in Iraq and Russia in Ukraine were led to war by unbridled hubris - that is a “key element” that these two conflicts have in common, said Ibrahim al-Marashi, professor of Iraqi history at California State University. And the US military proved more effective at fighting a conventional war in Iraq than Russia has in Ukraine. But key differences exist in the deeper motivations that triggered the wars, said military historians and analysts. The short answer: The parallels run deep, from the false pretexts under which they were launched and the failings of the United Nations system that the wars showed up, to the use of private military contractors. So did Russian President Vladimir Putin end up repeating the mistakes - and for many, the crimes - of Bush in Iraq 20 years ago? How much do these two epoch-defining invasions have in common? What are the differences? They expected to be marching through the streets of Kyiv within days, but a year later, the Russians remain bogged down in a protracted and bloody war. Like the US-led coalition in Iraq back then, the Russian government expected its illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022 to end with a quick and decisive victory.įooled by a sense of its own invincibility, the Russian army entered Ukraine as if on parade, in long columns that became easy targets for US-made Javelin missiles. The US occupation that lasted eight years created aftershocks of regional instability and left hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead - so many that no one has an exact count. Yet it was not the grand finale of the US invasion but rather the prelude to a long and bloody revolt and armed uprising. The toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad’s Firdos square - an event that turned out to be stage-managed - was meant to symbolise the liberation of Iraqis and the end of the Ba’ath Party’s 35-year-long rule in Iraq. Six weeks earlier, the US had invaded the Middle Eastern country illegally.Īs US armour was rolling into Iraqi cities, international news networks replayed over and over again a scene from April 9 that year that in hindsight seems loaded with dramatic irony. ![]() ![]() Twenty years ago, on May 1, 2003, then-United States President George W Bush announced the end of major combat operations in Iraq, a giant banner behind him triumphantly screaming, “Mission Accomplished”.
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