Almost two and a half decades have passed since March 19, 2003, when US aviation intensively bombed Bagdadstarting the operation ‘Iraqi Freedom’which ultimately became one of the most unfortunate war adventures that the United States has ever undertaken in its history. The regime of sadam husseinwho was falsely accused of storing weapons of mass destructionfell apart easily, in a matter of weeks. But what came next had a tremendous impact, on Iraqi citizens, on the international reputation and credibility of the United States, and also on relations between the Arab world and the West. Below are some of the main differences and similarities of both conflicts:
The alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction by the regimes of Saddam Hussein and Ali Jameneí have been the justification put forward by both the Administration of George W. Bush in his day, like that of Donald Trump currently, to initiate hostilities. In the case of Iraq, it was chemical weaponswhile in Iran, the problem lay in its uranium enrichment program susceptible to military use. In both cases, the accusations were reinforced by lapidary assertions that were either shrouded in inconsistencies or proven to be radically false.
A 2002 report prepared by British intelligence and manipulated by Alastair CambellDowning Street’s communications director under Tony Blairassured that Irak could deploy in “45 minutes” chemical and biological weapons capable of threatening neighboring states, an assertion that was proven false when Saddam’s regime broke down and it was discovered that he had eliminated his weapons program in the mid-1990s. In the case of Iran, Trump claimed that the Ayatollahs’ regime It was “two weeks away” of being able to develop nuclear weapons, which contradicts his statements made last June, after the first wave of US attacks, when he said that his aircraft had “totally obliterated” the Iranian nuclear program.
But, as EL PERIÓDICO reminds Pedro Rodriguezjournalist, analyst and professor of International Relations for several educational institutions and media, in the case of Iraq, when laying the foundations for “casualty of war”sessions were held in the US Congress and the issue was debated in international institutions such as the Security Council of the United Nations. “Here, things have gone much faster,” he emphasizes.
The Iran and Iraq wars also share goals: in both cases, it is about promoting a regime changenot to force a negotiation in a position of weakness, as had been the case with last year’s air bombings against Tehran by the US. Trump’s change of mind regarding getting involved in a risky military adventure against the Tehran regime has been brought about, in the opinion of analyst Rodríguez, “by the success achieved” in Venezuela with a military operation without American casualties that allowed the arrest of the former president Nicolas Maduro. At this point, Rodríguez sees parallels with what happened in the 1950s in the United States, when the country entered a “gradual dynamic of interventionism during the Cold war”which began in 1953 precisely in Tehran, with the successful overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohamed Mossadeq, and ended with the resounding failure of the invasion of Cuba in 1961.
The lack of planning for the day after It is also a common denominator between the offensive against the Persian country and the military operation almost two and a half decades ago in the Mesopotamian deserts. “There are no clear plans” in the event that the ayatollah regime falls apart, Rodríguez emphasizes. In the case of Iraq, the miscalculations were major: the US occupation authorities dismantled the Army, guarantor of the country’s unity, and opted for opposition figures without any internal support, such as Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress, a man who had been convicted of corruption and who ended up breaking with the US for passing classified information to the Iranian regime. Many compare his figure with that of Reza Ciro Pahlavithe son of the last shah, Mohamed Reza Pahlavi, who has become the most visible opponent in Iran today.
This improvisation runs the risk of ending with a result similar to that of Iraq, concludes Rodríguez: a country in ruins with “a devastating cost for the Iranian peoplejust as happened after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.”
The main driving force that pushed the US to invade Iraq became crystal clear in the days following the fall of Baghdad. In the middle of chaos and the wave of looting in which the Iraqi capital was plunged, while government headquarters, hospitals and museums with archaeological antiquities were fodder for hordes of thieves and thieves, the US troops, completely overwhelmed, limited themselves to deploying on the outskirts of the Ministry of Petroleum to protect it. The economic motivationsin particular depriving Chinathe United States’ main competitor, of the main supplier of its energy source seems to have been a fundamental motivation in the case of the attack on Iran. However, analyst Rodríguez adds a possible additional motivation: legacy that Trump may leave when he leaves the White House. “He collapse of the ayatollah regime”with massive destruction programs that threaten the security of the planet, is an aspiration of broad sectors of world public opinion, not just the United States. But as this analyst recalls, history shows that “those who launch military attacks can rarely control their results.”
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