George W. Bush’s war against Saddam Hussein radically altered the Middle East, though not as he envisaged. The region is at risk of becoming the Balkans of the twenty-first century – a decline into chaos that began with, and was largely the result of, the US-led invasion of Iraq ten years ago.
BERLIN – The United States has waged three wars since Al Qaeda’s terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001: against Al Qaeda, in Afghanistan, and in Iraq. The first two were forced upon the US, but the third was the result of a willful, deliberate decision by former President George W. Bush, taken on ideological grounds and, most likely, for personal reasons as well.
Had Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and their neocon allies been forthright about their intentions – to bring down Saddam Hussein by means of war, thereby creating a new, pro-Western Middle East – they never would have received the support of Congress and the American public. Their vision was both naive and reckless.
So a threat – Iraqi weapons of mass destruction – had to be created. As we now know, the threat was based on lies (aluminum tubes for a nuclear-weapons program, for example, meetings between the 9/11 plot leader, Mohamed Atta, and Iraqi officials in Prague, and even glaring forgeries like supposed Iraqi orders for yellowcake uranium from Niger).
BERLIN – The United States has waged three wars since Al Qaeda’s terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001: against Al Qaeda, in Afghanistan, and in Iraq. The first two were forced upon the US, but the third was the result of a willful, deliberate decision by former President George W. Bush, taken on ideological grounds and, most likely, for personal reasons as well.
Had Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and their neocon allies been forthright about their intentions – to bring down Saddam Hussein by means of war, thereby creating a new, pro-Western Middle East – they never would have received the support of Congress and the American public. Their vision was both naive and reckless.
So a threat – Iraqi weapons of mass destruction – had to be created. As we now know, the threat was based on lies (aluminum tubes for a nuclear-weapons program, for example, meetings between the 9/11 plot leader, Mohamed Atta, and Iraqi officials in Prague, and even glaring forgeries like supposed Iraqi orders for yellowcake uranium from Niger).