Continuing with our global coverage of America’s withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq, this editorial from Spain’s El Pais asserts that Iraq should be a lesson on ‘how easily democratically-elected leaders can unleash a futile tragedy, putting the world on the brink of catastrophe – particularly when inspired by a lethal mix of messianic megalomania and ideological fantasy.’
The editorial from El Pais says in part:
The United States has put an end to a war that never should have begun. And it has done so under conditions that won’t permit a declaration of victory or a concession of defeat, because the alleged reasons for invading Iraq were false, the strategy on the ground was misguided, and the objectives were vague and intangible. Since the weapons of mass destruction that served as an excuse for this war proved to be a deliberate manipulation, its advocates came to justify it as an attempt to bring democracy to Iraq. In other words, they tried to hide their vile methods behind a noble cause.
This war’s toll of dead and wounded will forever serve as an indictment of those who unleashed it, spurning the law and international institutions in the name of values that they betrayed while at the same time invoking them.
Their country was the victim of a grave act of violence not even the presence of a tyrant like Saddam Hussein could justify. Whether that act of violence keeps them from handing victory to those who, after seven years of fighting Americans, won’t hesitate to turn their weapons on Iraqis to subjugate them again, is now in their hands.
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