Juan Cole

Ghost of Iraq Comes Back to Haunt US/UK Syria Plans

Ghost of Iraq Comes Back to Haunt US/UK Syria Plans

The heavy propaganda for an Iraq War waged by the Bush administration and the Blair government in 2002-2003 came back to haunt the Anglo-American alliance on Thursday when the British parliament voted 285 to 272 not to authorize a military strike on Syria.

JUAN COLE: The heavy propaganda for an Iraq War waged by Bush, Blair governments came back to haunt the alliance on Thursday when parliament voted not to authorize a military strike on Syria.

 Juan Cole

10 Ways the Iraq Conflict has Diminished America

10 Ways the Iraq Conflict has Diminished America

As the tenth anniversary of the launching of the Iraq War approaches, I’ll be making some comments about the episode on Informed Comment, which for the years 2003-2010 intensively covered events in Iraq. A decade is long enough for some things to become clear.

The first set of issues I want to discuss has to do with the harm the war did to the United States. Coming into 2003, the US enjoyed a great deal of sympathy and solidarity from the rest of the world (including Iran) over the al-Qaeda strikes of September 11, 2001. In the aftermath of […]

 Francis Matthew

Iraq 10 Years On: The Benefit of Hindsight

Iraq 10 Years On: The Benefit of Hindsight

The attempts by President George W. Bush to justify the American-led invasion of Iraq followed so many wildly different reasons with no coherent link that the liveliest of conspiracy theories have flourished. This has been fuelled by the obvious political failure that has caused no pain to Bush and his neo-conservative allies who launched the war, while the companies with links to those same neo-conservatives have taken a significant share in the billions spent in reconstructing Iraq.

In the aftermath of the terrible attack on the World Trade Centre on 9/11, the first reason given was that Saddam Hussain supported Al Qaida, although Saddam had been ruthless in suppressing Islamists. Then Bush and Blair used Saddam’s alleged plan to manufacture and prepare to use weapons of mass destruction. When eventually this reason […]