March gets its name from the Roman god of war.
Nineteen years ago in March a nuclear armed super power built up forces on the border of a nation that had not attacked it. Using language that hearkened back to Nazis in WW2, the president of that super power had deemed this nation part of an “Axis of Evil” and accused this particular Axis member of building weapons of mass destruction. The president demanded that this nation let UN weapons inspectors into the country to see for themselves.
The other country did. The weapons inspectors went in. They found nothing. They were not denied access to any sites, including presidential palaces. The work was proceeding smoothly. Then the inspectors were told to leave—not by the Axis country in question, but by the president of the global super power. The inspections were a pretext all along. The superpower was always going to invade anyway.
Forces from the super power occupied the entire country. They replaced the government with a new one. Eventually the old president of the smaller country was tried and hanged. Thousands of civilians died. Power vacuums were created. Insurgencies began. Room was left for ISIS to grow. Thousands more died. Mission accomplished.
The “Axis of Evil” language was particularly flimsy. The three members of this new Axis included a two nations that were actually rivals. One was a theocracy, one was communist and one was fascist. The leaders of the three countries rarely even spoke to one another from what anyone could gather. Yet we had to stop this new “Axis”. At least Saddam’s party was actually fascist.
I am not writing this diary to somehow claim that the current war in the month of war is “the same.” I am writing because as I watched the news of the invasion nineteen years ago I felt much of the same moral outrage that I feel now. I started reading books about WW2 probably way younger than I should have. And what I took away from them is that only evil men and evil regimes invade peaceful neighbors. Every nation is allowed to defend itself. But part of “never again” had to mean that it was no longer acceptable for one sovereign nation to invade another if it had not been attacked first.
This is why I can see the defense of Korea or Kuwait in the First Gulf War as mostly justifiable conflicts. But Vietnam was a civil war within that country. And Iraq was absolutely a war of choice that shattered nearly sixty years of major powers not simply invading other countries.
We had a real moment in the 90s where we could have built a truly international community. The global community responded to the invasion of Kuwait. The European community responded to what was going on in the former Yugoslavia. Yes there were failures, particularly in Rwanda. But even after 9/11 a global community rallied to America’s side and defense. We could have built a world with true international norms and rules to follow.
Instead, America under Bush decided to go it alone. They decided that the best course of action was just to exercise American power anywhere and everywhere just because we could. We didn’t need the approval of the UN. We didn’t even need the approval of our NATO allies. We didn’t even have to follow international treaties we had signed banning the use of torture. We could just send whoever we wanted to GITMO and no one would ever have to face any consequences for it even when the Senate finally investigated all of this and released a full report years later.
Bush’s invasion of Iraq helped de-stabilize the world and its ramifications are still being felt today. This does not mean we can never condemn a new war of choice as a result. In some ways it makes us better able to point out the disastrous consequences even when you “win” and proclaim mission accomplished in a fairly short amount of time. America’s invasion of Iraq, like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, made the world LESS safe by a long shot. The lesson EVERY minor and medium power around the world has learned from these two wars is that they better get WMD and get them fast or else one of the major powers can invade them at will. That’s a more dangerous world for everyone.
When I watched that news years ago I was trembling with moral outrage that I lived in a country that chose to invade other countries. And I felt like weeping when we re-elected the man who made that choice just a year later.
If we are to provide moral leadership to the world again—and we must—I think it is time we acknowledge this sin from our very recent past. We need to show that our rhetoric is backed up by resolve to use might for right now and in the future. We should subject ourselves to the ICC just as we would like Russia and China to do. We need to affirm our commitments to things like the Geneva Convention. We need to strengthen the United Nations and other international institutions so that the world can act together to achieve major problems. No one country, no matter how mighty, can solve the problems of the 21st century. And like many of us, I fear that if we do not rebuild international coalitions, norms and standards we may not even survive the century.
I think that President Biden has gone a long way in doing much of this already. He has made sure that NATO and other allies have worked together in concert and presented a united front. He has rejected much of what Trump did and tried to rebuild the international order. But I also think it is time for the president and the other Democrats who voted to authorize Bush’s war in Iraq to acknowledge it was not just a mistake in judgment. It was a moral failing.
Admitting it as such does not weaken our position now. In fact, it strengthens it. Every program of self-improvement and rehabilitation makes it a requirement to first acknowledge what we are accountable for for a reason. It is vital to repairing relationships and restoring ourselves.
Wars of choice are wrong. Including ours.