The 2003 US invasion of Iraq was one of the greatest strategic blunders ever made; we will be paying the price for decades to come. But for the former members of the Bush administration who lied the country into an unnecessary and immoral war, it was a brilliant decision, marred only by the refusal of key international partners to go along with the charade.
In her new self-serving memoir of her years in the Bush White House – No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington – Condoleezza Rice rehashes all the lies concerning the non-existent WMDs, promotion of torture, etc. – it was a glorious time, indeed. But some refused to play the game – especially Gerhard Schröder. Towards the end of the book she fantasizes how it might have been had Angela Merkel been the German chancellor as the US marched over the cliff into a disastrous war:
Whenever I met Sarkozy, he greeted me by saying, “I love this woman.” He didn’t mean it literally, of course. But we saw eye to eye on almost everything. I couldn’t help but think how different it might have been to confront the problem of Saddam Hussein with Sarkozy instead of [Jacques] Chirac in the Élysée Palace and Angela Merkel instead of Gerhard Schroeder in Berlin.
Yes, why couldn't the obstinate German be more like the compliant Tony Blair, who, for all of his acomplishments, will forever be remembered as "Bush's Poodle"? We'll never know if Sarkozy and Merkel would have defied the will of their people and joined Rice, Bush, Rumsfeld & Co. in their illegal adventure as Bush's Schnauzer and (giant) Pug.
3 comments
So is the 2011 invasion of Libya by NATO.
Still mourning the death of your hero, Ghadaffi?
It must bother you to no end that there are people alive to today in Benghazi thanks to Nato’s intervention (no invasion).
Hindsight is an exact science. I’ve been for the liberation of Iraq although I knew the campaign was against international laws. Wasn’t it a shame that these laws gave (give) carde blanche to any criminal once he gained absolute power on ‘his’ sovereign territory? Even the obvious lies of the Bush administration seemed a minor problem to me in regard of the great achievements that could be made in the name of a justice higher than those international laws. But the first victim of war is the truth. The second victim of the Iraq war was Saddam and his regime, but the third victim were and still are the people of Iraq – because the coalition forces’ set-up was only strong enough to win the war but not to win and maintain peace and security. Lies have short legs, the road to hell is paved with good intentions – fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me! How could I ever support another war? So I’ve been against the war on Libya, not because I was for Ghadaffi, but because I deeply distrusted France’s intentions. It appears, David, your confidence was correct and my distrust was wrong, but as we learn from that we should be very careful to make the promomotion of wars ‘in the name of humanity’ a habit. Yet it is not absolutely where the liberated Libyan people will end up nor whether Libya was just a stepping stone for future engagements of NATO/EU-forces in Africa.