Contributor: U.S. attack on Iran echoes Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
It was alarming to hear on Sunday that Iran’s foreign minister resembled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky circa 2022. But this was the comparison that immediately came to Abbas Araghchi’s mind. said George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” program: “What the United States did is an act of aggression. What we did is an act of self-defense. There are huge differences between the two.”
All you have to do is replace the USA with Russia and it is very clear who and what we have become. An aggressive nation that kills people on Caribbean fishing boats without evidence or due process. This captures and removes the Venezuelan president, then lays claim to Venezuelan oil. This led to the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, leading to retaliatory attacks by Iran in the Middle East.
Of course there are differences. When Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine and launched the ongoing war, he targeted the democratically elected leader of a sovereign nation with the aim of seizing territory and installing a Russian puppet at the top. By contrast, President Trump in January toppled a theocratic dictator who told security forces to crush mass protests against him. lethal forceIt causes the death of thousands of people.
And yet. Trump started this war no constitutional authority. strength It is up to Congress to declare war or authorize the use of force, and America’s was attackedThis must happen beforehand. Nor has Trump gathered any consistent or convincing evidence about Iran’s nuclear capabilities; This is one of the alleged justifications for choosing this war. And he went into it with little concern for the lives lived so far and the consequences. points related to kids and other civilians killed in Iran; US military casualties, including six dead; And Iranian attacks in at least 10 countries: Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Cyprus and Oman.
When Trump makes a suggestion short address When he told the nation on Friday that there could be deaths and missing people in the United States, his words sounded rote and empty. “This often happens in war,” he said. “But we’re not doing this for now. We’re doing this for the future.”
Will it come? Which future? Many of us remember President George W. Bush’s grandiose ideas to export democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq. Trump’s “future” looks more like a return to the endless wars and failures of the past. What exactly is an “America First” candidate? vowed to avoid In his winning campaigns in 2016 and 2024.
Remember the Green Zone? US territory protected in Baghdad during the Iraq war? Now this is the site of the US Embassy and last weekend it was also pro-Iran protesters Those – waving flags of pro-Iranian armed groups and throwing stones – were met with tear gas as they tried to charge towards the embassy.
The mere words “Green Zone” are a depressing reminder of the lessons many of our leaders never learned. Iraq was an unfortunate misadventure, another election war, another war based on false assumptions about weapons – in the 2003 case, a war in which Iraq did not exist. stocks chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction; There is now a nuclear program that always seems to be on the verge of becoming dangerous. And unfortunately, Bush Iraq war has begun when you’re just at the beginning of something 20 years of war In Afghanistan, following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
Afghanistan was a theocracy controlled by the extremist Taliban. Bush & Co. did not decide to bomb the camps where the Taliban trained terrorists. They decided to invade Afghanistan and bring it into the modern age with equal rights for girls and women. Wasn’t it nice to think like that? And pure, especially after the Soviet Union spent He fought for a decade to enlist his communist allies in Afghanistan before withdrawing his troops after failure in 1989.
One of the most devastating documents I saw was the State Department’s 2020 report on human rights violations in Afghanistan. This was 19 years after we dropped the first bombs on the Taliban and began our quest to transform Afghanistan into a 21st century country where girls could go to school, grow up, find jobs, run for office, and wear whatever they wanted.
Beyond the Taliban’s sheer brutality towards women, I wrote In 2021, the report addressed injustice, negligence, and cruelty by local governments and institutions: “Women were imprisoned for reporting that they were victims of crime, at the request of family members, or because they were surrogates for male relatives convicted of crimes.” And the inevitable, terrible conclusion: no matter how long America stays, “we can’t get a country to care about its own women.” Only Afghanistan could do this.
If Iran’s foreign minister was right to insist on Sunday that there would be successors to the Khamenei regime and continuity of the Islamic Republic, does Trump hope for this? common acceptance Like her successors did in Venezuela with her new best friend, Delcy Rodriguez? If Iranian insurgents (some, but not all, of the population) miraculously manage to organize and make progress, will they be able to get any money or troops from Trump? Or does it just want Iranian oil?
Unfortunately for them, our president will most likely conclude, as always, that power is the most important thing and make deals with anyone who has that power (be it a socialist in Venezuela, an autocrat in Iran, or Putin in Russia).
Jill Lawrence a journalist and “The Art of the Political Deal: How Congress Beat the Odds and Surpassed the Obstacle.” He is the author of the book. Blue sky: @jilldlawrence
