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[size=36]American report: Saddam misled Washington and the invasion of Iraq was a disaster[/size]
Political | 03:48 - 06/05/2024
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Follow-up - Mawazine News
“Foreign Policy” magazine published an article, by writer David Polanski, in which he talked about the book “Achilles’ Trap” by writer Steve Cole, who considers that the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a disaster, and that the war itself was as much a creation of the media as it was Government-made; Major media outlets, from The New York Times to The Atlantic to The New Yorker, helped legitimize the war.
In his article, which was translated by Mawazine News, the writer explained that there were many American failures in Iraq, including what was described as a “failure of understanding.” Whereas former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could never understand the intentions of the United States.
He continued that despite his cunning; He remained fundamentally paranoid of the United States, whether during the years of tacit alliance during the 1980s or the subsequent period of hostility, which led him to deceive when candor would have served him better. This ultimately led to tragic results when the United States launched its invasion of Iraq in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction that did not exist at the time.
The writer added that Cole's main focus on the bilateral relationship between the United States and Iraq provides insight, but it also risks excluding the role of the global system as a whole, over which the United States enjoyed unparalleled dominance in the post-Cold War period, during the years leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2017. 2003. So while it is true that Saddam Hussein misled the United States and misread its intentions, it is even more true that the United States, with its global capabilities and commitments, chose to bring much attention and concern to Iraq.
The writer pointed out that since the end of the Cold War; US policymakers proved unable to define national interests and set global priorities, with the result that there was no way to explain why one region or country deserved more attention than any other.
This strategic ambiguity at the highest levels regarding the relative importance of the Middle East and US goals there continued throughout the 1990s. By the time 9/11 occurred, track reliance alone had already raised Iraq's importance to the US government beyond any reasonable proportion. Vague hope has been replaced by false clarity regarding its goals.
The writer stated that none of this can be attributed to Saddam's dangerous adventures or to the diplomatic dynamic between the two countries. So, although it is true that each misread the basic intentions of the other, ultimately the problem of misunderstanding is neither sufficient nor necessary to explain what happened in the spring of 2003.
The author said that the “chain of errors” explanation better explains the 1991 Gulf War. , which neither party really wanted. Cole offers a vivid account of that history as well, which, among its strengths, rightly defends then-Ambassador April Glaspie from the unfair blame she endured in the wake of Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.
The writer stated that the United States failed to deter Iraq from invading Kuwait. But apart from the fact that almost no one, including other Arab leaders, expected this; Cole's telescopic view makes Iraq on the eve of Saddam Hussein's decision to invade appear much larger and more important from a global perspective than it actually was.
He noted that in August 1990, the Tiananmen Square massacre had been barely a year old, the Soviet Union had not yet disintegrated, and the process of German reunification was still underway. Even after the invasion of Kuwait, it was not self-evident for the (first) Bush administration to conclude that the operation deserved an American response of this magnitude.
By contrast, the drive for war during the eighteen-month period between the September 11 attacks and the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom was so great that it is difficult to imagine a plausible counterfactual in which war could be avoided.
In fact, Cole's reports make clear, in some ways despite his larger thesis, that there was no reasonable standard of evidence that would satisfy U.S. leaders regarding the veracity of Saddam Hussein's claims, and this was indeed true during the Clinton presidency.
The author continued, saying that although this was to some extent a story of misreading intentions and confirmation bias, it is fundamentally a story about the beliefs that American policymakers held about the world, all of which intensified dramatically in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Specifically; They believed that bad regimes and bad leaders represented the greatest source of international threats, that U.S. policy should focus on replacing both as needed, and that the benefits of doing so might exceed the costs.
By emphasizing procedural errors over more fundamental failures in strategy and geopolitical thinking, Cole initially dilutes the force of his criticism. It allows us to see how doubtful the analyzes of Saddam Hussein's capabilities and intentions were, but not to the degree that they seemed very convincing to both US decision-makers and the majority of the broader public at the time.
The writer added that Cole usefully answered the questions of “how” and “what” happened regarding the invasion of Iraq, while the question of “why” remains unanswered. Cole rightly highlights the role of both neoconservative democracy promoters (Paul Wolfowitz) and aggressive militarists ( Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and others) were ultimately involved in the decision to invade, but even here his account ignores how popular the decision actually was, at least initially,
and many people inside and outside of government found themselves supporting the invasion despite little knowledge of the technical requirements of the program Effective weapons of mass destruction or Saddam Hussein's distortions of it.
Addressing the "why" question will require a more comprehensive examination of the flaws in how the policymaking establishment sees, and in many ways may still see, the world and America's place in it It's another thing to acknowledge how crazy it was, and how few geostrategic barriers there were to constrain those impulses.
“Foreign Policy” magazine published an article, by writer David Polanski, in which he talked about the book “Achilles’ Trap” by writer Steve Cole, who considers that the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a disaster, and that the war itself was as much a creation of the media as it was Government-made; Major media outlets, from The New York Times to The Atlantic to The New Yorker, helped legitimize the war.
In his article, which was translated by Mawazine News, the writer explained that there were many American failures in Iraq, including what was described as a “failure of understanding.” Whereas former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could never understand the intentions of the United States.
He continued that despite his cunning; He remained fundamentally paranoid of the United States, whether during the years of tacit alliance during the 1980s or the subsequent period of hostility, which led him to deceive when candor would have served him better. This ultimately led to tragic results when the United States launched its invasion of Iraq in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction that did not exist at the time.
The writer added that Cole's main focus on the bilateral relationship between the United States and Iraq provides insight, but it also risks excluding the role of the global system as a whole, over which the United States enjoyed unparalleled dominance in the post-Cold War period, during the years leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2017. 2003. So while it is true that Saddam Hussein misled the United States and misread its intentions, it is even more true that the United States, with its global capabilities and commitments, chose to bring much attention and concern to Iraq.
The writer pointed out that since the end of the Cold War; US policymakers proved unable to define national interests and set global priorities, with the result that there was no way to explain why one region or country deserved more attention than any other.
This strategic ambiguity at the highest levels regarding the relative importance of the Middle East and US goals there continued throughout the 1990s. By the time 9/11 occurred, track reliance alone had already raised Iraq's importance to the US government beyond any reasonable proportion. Vague hope has been replaced by false clarity regarding its goals.
The writer stated that none of this can be attributed to Saddam's dangerous adventures or to the diplomatic dynamic between the two countries. So, although it is true that each misread the basic intentions of the other, ultimately the problem of misunderstanding is neither sufficient nor necessary to explain what happened in the spring of 2003.
The author said that the “chain of errors” explanation better explains the 1991 Gulf War. , which neither party really wanted. Cole offers a vivid account of that history as well, which, among its strengths, rightly defends then-Ambassador April Glaspie from the unfair blame she endured in the wake of Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.
The writer stated that the United States failed to deter Iraq from invading Kuwait. But apart from the fact that almost no one, including other Arab leaders, expected this; Cole's telescopic view makes Iraq on the eve of Saddam Hussein's decision to invade appear much larger and more important from a global perspective than it actually was.
He noted that in August 1990, the Tiananmen Square massacre had been barely a year old, the Soviet Union had not yet disintegrated, and the process of German reunification was still underway. Even after the invasion of Kuwait, it was not self-evident for the (first) Bush administration to conclude that the operation deserved an American response of this magnitude.
By contrast, the drive for war during the eighteen-month period between the September 11 attacks and the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom was so great that it is difficult to imagine a plausible counterfactual in which war could be avoided.
In fact, Cole's reports make clear, in some ways despite his larger thesis, that there was no reasonable standard of evidence that would satisfy U.S. leaders regarding the veracity of Saddam Hussein's claims, and this was indeed true during the Clinton presidency.
The author continued, saying that although this was to some extent a story of misreading intentions and confirmation bias, it is fundamentally a story about the beliefs that American policymakers held about the world, all of which intensified dramatically in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Specifically; They believed that bad regimes and bad leaders represented the greatest source of international threats, that U.S. policy should focus on replacing both as needed, and that the benefits of doing so might exceed the costs.
By emphasizing procedural errors over more fundamental failures in strategy and geopolitical thinking, Cole initially dilutes the force of his criticism. It allows us to see how doubtful the analyzes of Saddam Hussein's capabilities and intentions were, but not to the degree that they seemed very convincing to both US decision-makers and the majority of the broader public at the time.
The writer added that Cole usefully answered the questions of “how” and “what” happened regarding the invasion of Iraq, while the question of “why” remains unanswered. Cole rightly highlights the role of both neoconservative democracy promoters (Paul Wolfowitz) and aggressive militarists ( Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and others) were ultimately involved in the decision to invade, but even here his account ignores how popular the decision actually was, at least initially,
and many people inside and outside of government found themselves supporting the invasion despite little knowledge of the technical requirements of the program Effective weapons of mass destruction or Saddam Hussein's distortions of it.
Addressing the "why" question will require a more comprehensive examination of the flaws in how the policymaking establishment sees, and in many ways may still see, the world and America's place in it It's another thing to acknowledge how crazy it was, and how few geostrategic barriers there were to constrain those impulses.
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