The US administration began bombing Iraq today, with hopes that the disaster created by the 2003 Iraq War II could be rectified by starting Iraq War III. The pretext was to rescue a religious minority trapped by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters. It was called a “humanitarian” intervention.
The ISIS menace is one created in Washington through the much-vaunted 2007 “Arab Awakening” in Iraq – where, as Justin Raimondo points out, the US was “arming, training, and bribing the very folks who are now welcoming ISIS with open arms.” ISIS has been significantly strengthened over the past three years by the US program to arm and back Islamist insurgents fighting to overthrow the secular government in Syria. Without US support for the rebels in Syria, ISIS would not be overrunning Iraq right now.
Nevertheless, the US government has decided to bomb Iraq to address the humanitarian crisis that it caused in the first place.
Meanwhile, US Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, warned Russia, as US humanitarian bombs fell on Iraq, that any further intervention in Ukraine, including under the pretense of delivering humanitarian aid, would be viewed as “an invasion of Ukraine.”
“The humanitarian situation needs addressing, but not by those who have caused it,” she said (presumably with a straight face).
Recall US Secretary of State John Kerry’s foot-in-mouth criticism when Crimea re-joined Russia: “You just don’t invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests.”
Irony and self-reflection is totally lost on US foreign policy and its practitioners.
