Twenty years after the start of the second Gulf War, the maneuvers used by the United States and its allies to justify a preventive war without possible justification which doomed Iraqi society to ruin, did not substantially improve security standards in the Middle East and gave wings to a new type of jihadism that gave birth to the Islamic State. The photo of trio from the Azores -George W. Bush, Tony Blair and José María Aznar- It still serves today to summarize the extent to which a superpower is capable of attracting troupes and inventing evidence – the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – before giving the order to attack. At the same time, the memory of the response from the streets, with massive demonstrations against the war everywhere, highlights the idea according to which, in situations of extreme risk, citizen mobilization is the greatest and most forceful ethical counterweight.
None of the problems stemming from the ominous regime of Saddam Hussein was resolved with war, the United States reaped a resounding failure as a builder of nations and the new regime contributed to the entrenchment of political-religious sectarianism in Iraq, a social fracture incompatible with stability and progress. The party system set up in 2004 has fueled social tension ever since, has been unable to guarantee institutional collaboration between Sunnis and Shiites, and keeps the Kurdish dossier open despite the federalism encouraged by the 2005 Constitution.
Two decades later, the ‘Neocon’ obsession with Iraq after the 9/11 attacks, the effort to include it in the Axis of Evil along with Iran and North Korea and the fabrication of evidence to convince the United Nations Security Council that there was no other way but to opt for war. The triumphalism that triggered the arrival in Baghdad of the vanguard of the United States Army is also absurd: the slogan “Mission accomplished” hung on an aircraft carrier to receive President Bush had little to do with reality. In the following years, moments of high risk were chained and finally, before the almost complete withdrawal from the country, it was verified that the United States had not escaped the historical constant that condemns the great powers since the end of the Second World War: they have failed to win a war, even if they have achieved momentary victories over their adversaries.
The progressive US withdrawal from the Middle East has to do with the experience of Iraq and the inability to control Afghanistan. If the expedition to the Persian Gulf was part of the strategy to shield Israel’s security and to neutralize a revived pan-Arabism, much more noisy than effective, the withdrawal from the stage has left the way clear for China, converted into a power ready to fill the gap -the resumption of relations Iran-Saudi Arabia, China through the last test- with no other requirement than to guarantee the good progress of business. Clearly a more effective formula to stabilize the region and guard Israel than the resort to arms of 2003, the benefits of which were conspicuous by their absence.