Medal of Shame

Former president George W. Bush should be tried for misleading the American people and for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Also, he is responsible for war crimes committed in Iraq as a result of his blunder and irrational foreign policy. The American Congress is as guilty as George W. Bush by not checking on his fabricated intelligence reports that claimed that Iraq was a threat to the U.S. Even the director of the CIA at the time did not support President Bush’s views about Saddam Hussein’s WMD and the idea that Iraq was a threat to the U.S. The chance of the American Congress reexamining the intelligence reports that Bush used to justify the war is zero. At the least, Bush deserves a medal of shame for creating the opportunity for Iran to extend its influence politically and economically in Iraq. To put it in simpler terms, Bush put Iraq on a silver platter and handed it to Iran.

The Wikileaks secret documents on the Iraq war revealed a great deal of information about what happened during the seven years of the Iraq war. In one of many areas, the secret documents revealed the role that Iran played in the Iraq war. Iran played an important role in the training and arming of Iraqi Shia militia forces, who also played a very critical role in the killing of many Sunni Iraqi political leaders. Also, many leaders of the dismantled al-Baath National Political Party who were targets of assassinations by the Iraqi Shia militia groups and Iranian National Revolutionary Guards who were operating secretly in Iraq.

It is unfortunate that Bush’s war opened the door for Iran to extend its influence in Iraq. Among other things, the Iranian influence in Iraq is reflected in the stalled political arena and the obstacles Iraq is facing now by the failure of its politicians to form a government even 8 months after the election of new members of the Iraqi parliament. The ex-Prime Minister Al-Maliki is the Iranian choice to form the government, despite the fact that his political party was ranked second after Mr. E. Allawi’s political party. Mr. Allawi, a Shi3a secularist, is an ex-member of the Baath party who fled the country due to political conflict with Saddam Hussein. Furthermore, Hussein and his Baath party fought a proxy war on behalf of the U.S. during the 1970s and 1980s. The U.S. supported the Iraqi invasion of Iran in revenge for the more than 52 American prisoners who were taken as hostages by Iran during President Carter’s administration. American politicians quite frequently tend to lack the ability to see beyond their nose. The destruction of the Iraqi regime under S. Hussein led to the disaster which the region is facing, and the rise of new threats to the U.S. in particular and the West in general. The Arab national aspiration for unity, at least theoretically speaking, ended with the collapse of the secular political regime of Saddam Hussein. Despite the fact that he was corrupt and a vicious dictator, he was able to maintain stability in Iraq. He eliminated many of his opponents, which the U.S. politicians used as justification for his removal. Seldom does anyone ask about the deaths of Iraqi civilians as a result of the American invasion, which is by far more than the number killed by S. Hussein’s regime. Plenty of information on the Iraqi civilian casualties was revealed recently by Wikileaks secret Pentagon documents. Furthermore, it reveals the possibilities that war crimes were also committed in Iraq with the knowledge of the American military authority. No political Islamic movement was permitted in Iraq. As a matter of fact, bin Laden offered his help prior to the invasion to the Saudi government and the U.S. to help removed the Hussein regime from power in Iraq. Bin Laden viewed Hussein as more dangerous to his Islamic militant group than the U.S.

The American foreign policy in the Middle East region in general and the Arab world in particular reflects nothing but one disaster after another since the end of World War II. The militant powers in the region are reflected by the Israeli government, the Iranian government and Islamic militant groups all over the Middle East and N