By the early 1980s, the United States had decided that Iran posed a far greater threat to world peace than Iraq. This turned out to be a very costly mistake.
Later in 1980, Iraq invaded Iran in one of the clearest instances of naked aggression since World War II. The aim was to annex territory in southwestern Iran, although there is some dispute as to how much. Subsequent events suggest that Saddam wanted the oil-rich province of Khuzestan, which contains most of Iran’s vast oil reserves. In a shameful act of “realpolitik”, the United States supported the aggressor in the war.
Proponents of realpolitik like to portray their critics as fuzzy-headed idealists who don’t understand the realities of national security. In fact, it was the realists who ended up undermining American interests in the Middle East. The leader of Iran was thought to be the Hitler of the Middle East, yet the 1980 invasion showed that it was Saddam Hussein who most resembled this notorious aggressor. As a result, the United States did nothing to verbally discourage Saddam from later invading Kuwait, and this passivity led to the Gulf War of 1991 and the much more costly Iraq War of 2003. .
The long and sad history of our policies toward Iraq and Iran has important lessons for today. Imagine that the United States is confronted with two great powers. Our foreign policy establishment insists that the larger of the two countries is the greater threat to world peace. Subsequent events prove that is not the case, as the leader of the smaller of the two great powers is revealed to be the “new Saddam Hussein”, a militarist who invades one neighbor after another, with grandiose dreams of annexation of territory to enlarge its territory. country.
One would have hoped that our foreign policy establishment had learned the lessons of Iraq and Iran, and understood the need to update their beliefs as new information came in. world peace. Alas, that does not seem be the case.
The United States has decided to support Ukraine with military aid. We have also decided (wisely in my opinion) not to go to war with nuclear-armed Russia. Unfortunately, President Biden succeeded abundantly clear that the United States intends to go to war against nuclear-armed China if a war breaks out between China and Taiwan. And the entire American foreign policy establishment seems on board with this project. China is considered “the real enemy”.
Make no mistake, in a US-China war, the US would likely be the aggressor. China has no interest in attacking the United States. And China has enough nuclear weapons to destroy all of our major cities. Although a nuclear war is unlikely, once two nuclear-armed countries go to war, there is a risk of it escalating out of control, especially if the country under attack ends up on the losing side of a war. conventional.
A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be a morally unjustified action. Nevertheless, China is only a threat to Taiwan (which the United States and most other countries officially consider part of a unified China). Russia is a threat to many Eastern European countries, which are internationally recognized as sovereign and independent nations. There is simply no comparison between the two cases.
When an American administration can only defend its foreign policy through a series of manifestly misleading statements, it is clear that there is something wrong with the policy. A country that does the right thing should be able tell the truth.