The western media continue to refer to the US attack on Iraq, and the subsequent bloody years of occupation, as variously a "mistake", a "misadventure", and a "blunder". But surely it does not look that way to Moscow, all the more so given that Washington followed its invasion of Iraq with a series of proxy wars against other Middle Eastern and North African states such as Libya, Syria and Yemen.
To Russia, the attack on Iraq looks more like a stepping stone in a continuum of wars the US has waged over decades for "full-spectrum dominance" and to eradicate competitors for control of the planet's resources.
With that as the context, Moscow might have reasonably imagined that the US and its Nato allies were eager for yet another proxy war, this time using Ukraine as the battlefield. Recent comments from Biden administration officials, such as Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, noting that Washington's tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Kyiv is intended to "weaken Russia", can only accentuate such fears.
Back in March, Leon Panetta, a former US secretary of defence and the CIA director under Barack Obama, who is in a position to speak more freely than serving officials, observed that Washington was waging "a proxy war with Russia, whether we say so or not".
He predicted where US policy would head next, noting that the aim would be "to provide as much military aid as necessary". Diplomacy has been a glaringly low priority for Washington.
Barely concealed from public view is a desire in the US and its allies for another regime change operation - this time in Russia - rather than end the war and the suffering of Ukrainians.
Butcher versus blundererLast week, the New York Times very belatedly turned down the war rhetoric a notch and called on the Biden administration to advance negotiations. Even so, its assessment of where the blame lay for Ukraine's destruction was unambiguous: "Mr Putin will go down in history as a butcher."
But have Bush or Blair gone down in history as butchers? They most certainly haven't. And the reason is that the western media have been complicit in rehabilitating their images, presenting them as statesmen who "blundered" - with the implication that good people blunder when they fail to take account of how entrenched the evil of everyone else in the world is.
A butcher versus a pair of blunderers
This false distinction means western leaders and western publics continue to evade responsibility for western crimes in Iraq and elsewhere.
That was why in late February - in reference to Ukraine - a TV journalist could suggest to Condoleezza Rice, who was one of the architects of the illegal war of aggression on Iraq as Bush's national security adviser: "When you invade a sovereign nation, that is a war crime." The journalist apparently did not consider for a moment that it was not just Putin who was a war criminal but the very woman she was sitting opposite.
It was also why Rice could nod solemnly and agree with a straight face that Putin's invasion of Ukraine was "against every principle of international law and international order - and that's why throwing the book at them [Russia] now in terms of economic sanctions and punishments is a part of it".
But a West that has refused to come to terms with its role in committing the "supreme international crime" of invading Iraq, and has been supporting systematic crimes against the sovereignty of other states such as Yemen, Libya and Syria, cannot sit in judgment on Russia. And further, it should not be trying to take the high ground by meddling in the war in Ukraine.
If we took the implications of Bush's comment seriously, rather than treating it as a "gaffe", and viewing the Iraq invasion as a "blunder", we might be in a position to speak with moral authority instead of flaunting - once again - our hypocrisy.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
