With Iran, The U.S. Faces The Potential For An Iraq War 2.0

Israel’s unprovoked attack on Iran has the potential to be far, far more catastrophic.

By David Vine, Responsible Statecraft

Like all things in the Middle East, the U.S.–Israeli war on Iran can seem complicated. It’s not. The unprovoked Israeli attack on Iran is the 2003 Iraq War 2.0, except it has the potential to be far, far more catastrophic than the absolute catastrophe that was Iraq.

Like President George W. Bush’s 2003 war on Iraq, the war on Iran is an unprovoked, illegal, offensive, unilateral war of aggression, potentially aimed at regime change, and sold to the public based on lies about nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.

Just as the administration of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney lied about a bogus threat of Iraqi “mushroom clouds,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is lying about a nuclear threat from an Iran that has no nuclear weapons and was in negotiations to avoid getting them.

This time the lies are even uglier because Netanyahu is weaponizing the memory of the Nazi Holocaust and 6 million dead Jews (including some of my family members), by trying to scare people with talk of a “nuclear holocaust” and “never again is now.”

Israel is the country with nuclear weapons, along with the United States. Iran has none. Iranians are the only ones now at risk of a nuclear holocaust.

Despite Donald Trump’s election night promise not to “start wars” and instead to “stop wars,” the United States is already fighting Iraq War 2.0 by defending Israel militarily, by arming Israel, by sharing intelligence with Israel, and by failing to stop Israel despite having advance notice of the war. President Trump called Israel’s attacks “excellent” last week and more recently said the U.S. military “could get involved.” Referring to Iran, Trump told ABC News, “There’s more to come, a lot more.”