Trump admin makes George W Bush's look like a model of responsibility

When the United States of America (USA) invaded Iraq more than two decades ago, many people across the world, including in the West, believed it was an illegal war, launched without sufficient preparation or justification. That belief eventually became mainstream even within the US and shaped domestic politics there for several elections.

 

And yet, compared to how cavalierly the current dispensation in the US has launched a war of regime change against Iran, the efforts of President George W Bush to make a case for the Iraq invasion and to persuade allies and multilateral organisations seem almost quaint. Colin Powell, Mr Bush’s secretary of state, famously held up a vial — supposedly of weaponised anthrax — in the United Nations Security Council, urging it to authorise the war. A few months earlier, the President had addressed the General Assembly, framing it as the UN’s war because it was being launched supposedly for the reason that Saddam Hussein did not comply with UN resolutions that he disarm.

 

When the UN did not agree with the argument, the administration turned to urging its allies within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to join its “coalition of the willing”. The United Kingdom did, but many others stayed out; France threatened a veto in the Security Council, and Türkiye denied the use of its bases bordering Iraq to the Americans.

 

And while the collective memory of the post-invasion period is of unplanned chaos, that was not the plan — and there was, indeed a plan. The State Department’s “Future of Iraq” project produced what George Washington University describes as a “1,200-page 13-volume report that contains a multitude of facts, strategies, predictions and warnings about a diverse range of complex and potentially explosive issues”. That the White House turned these into self-fulfilling prophecies by putting the defence department instead of the diplomats in charge of rebuilding Iraq is beside the point.

 

None of this is meant as a re-evaluation of the Bush administration, which is solely responsible for unleashing an unnecessary and unjustified war that killed hundreds of thousands of people and fatally discredited the post-War order. The point is that, compared to President Donald Trump’s belligerence against Iran, even that disgraceful period in the early 2000s seems suffused with caution and responsibility.

 

Mr Trump launched this war for unknown reasons, with no planning whatsoever, no attempt to corral allies, and with no sense of what an endgame might be. Lulled by protests in Iran and his earlier adventurism in Venezuela, he seemed to think that a 50-year-old autocracy would collapse after a bombing campaign. The US’ military planners seem to have failed to predict Tehran’s response, including the bombing of US allies in the region and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

 

The President has now turned to flailing around in anger, with his ire directed at his traditional target — the Europeans, who have quite understandably refused to join in the war and limited the use of their bases to varying degrees. Nato is a defensive alliance, activated only when a member is attacked, not when it attacks someone; but the President’s faction in US politics has deliberately chosen to ignore this fact. Instead, he has threatened to leave Nato, and to (once again) abandon Ukraine unless the Europeans do what he says.

 

Meanwhile, he is blithely unconcerned by the damage that his war is doing to economies across the globe, especially in the developing world. The US, as a major producer of fossil fuels, is relatively — but not completely — insulated from the closure of the Strait. The same is not true for Europe, which is dependent on liquefied natural gas, or for energy importers in Asia and Africa, including India.

 

One difference is that Mr Trump has so far resisted the temptation to send in ground troops, although more marines have been sent to the area and he occasionally threatens to occupy Iran’s main fuel-export terminal at Kharg Island. But we cannot be certain that will last, either.

 

The question is whether an error of this magnitude will have a longer-term backlash within US politics equivalent to the reaction to the failures in Iraq two decades ago. That discredited an entire faction within politics; neoconservatives, as they were called, largely failed to recover the power they possessed prior to that invasion.

 

While a hopeful thought, it is hard to imagine something similar happening to the Trumpian faction. Over the past two decades, prominent sections within US society have changed. They do not believe in accountability for decision-makers, and are no longer enraged at being misled or deceived. They are far more likely to join Mr Trump in a search for scapegoats than in holding him accountable for his mistakes.