war in Iraq

Chris Hedges writes: The rewriting of history by the power elite was painfully evident as the nation marked the 10th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. Some claimed they had opposed the war when they had not. Others among “Bush’s useful idiots” argued that they had merely acted in good faith on the [...]

Der Spiegel reports: Kirkuk is a multiethnic city thousands of years old and claimed by Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen alike. American occupiers already viewed it as the predetermined breaking point of the new Iraq. They predicted that the various groups in the “Mesopotamian Jerusalem” would begin attacking each other after US troops had withdrawn. The [...]

Andrew Bacevich writes: [Albert] Wohlstetter’s perspective (which became yours) emphasized five distinct propositions. Call them the Wohlstetter Precepts. First, liberal internationalism, with its optimistic expectation that the world will embrace a set of common norms to achieve peace, is an illusion. Of course virtually every president since Franklin Roosevelt has paid lip service to that [...]

Richard Clarke writes: On Tuesday, at this 10th anniversary of the American Invasion of Iraq, we would do well to remind ourselves about some painful facts. Keeping those facts in our collective memory may make it easier for us as a nation to prevent future mistakes. So, let us recall five unfortunate facts about the [...]

Andrew J. Bacevich writes: Judgments rendered by history tend to be tentative, incomplete and reversible. More than occasionally, they arrive seasoned with irony. This is especially true when it comes to war, where battlefield outcomes thought to be conclusive often prove anything but. Rather than yielding peace, victory frequently serves as a prelude to more [...]

Martin Bright reports: Ten years ago, a young Mandarin specialist at GCHQ, the government’s surveillance centre in Cheltenham, did something extraordinary. Katharine Gun, a shy and studious 28-year-old who spent her days listening in to obscure Chinese intercepts, decided to tell the world about a secret plan by the US government to spy on the [...]

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad writes: In late August, at a leadership summit in Johannesburg, anti-apartheid hero Archbishop Desmond Tutu refused to share a platform with Tony Blair. Citing Blair’s role in the immoral invasion of Iraq, he suggested that the former British prime minister belonged in the dock at The Hague, not on the international speakers’ [...]

Desmond Tutu writes: On what grounds do we decide that Robert Mugabe should go the International Criminal Court, Tony Blair should join the international speakers’ circuit, bin Laden should be assassinated, but Iraq should be invaded, not because it possesses weapons of mass destruction, as Mr Bush’s chief supporter, Mr Blair, confessed last week, but [...]

Juan Cole highlights a detail from Alastair Campbell’s diaries that has so far received little media attention: that in 2002 Ariel Sharon apparently threatened a nuclear strike on Baghdad. Cole interprets this as an example of Israel engaging in nuclear blackmail and wonders whether Netanyahu is now using the same tactic. Read what Campbell (Tony [...]

Jon Schwarz writes: In his new book, It Worked For Me: In Life and Leadership, Colin Powell writes this about his 2003 presentation at the United Nations about Iraq’s supposed WMD: “I get mad when bl*ggers accuse me of lying – of knowing the information was false. I didn’t.” Well, I’m a blugger, and I [...]