On this March 20, we commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Iraq war in 2003, when a coalition led by the United States invaded this country accusing it of having played a role in the attacks of 11 September and to be on the verge of producing weapons of mass destruction, turning it into a threat to world balance.
We know that today these accusations were based on false propaganda on the part of the United States.
I.
This does not mean that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was a recommendable country. It was an atrocious dictatorship persecuting its own people. As there are unfortunately several. Do you have to intervene every time?
How then can this invasion be explained?
The reason for oil has often been mentioned. But it was neither the only nor the first.
This war, led by the so-called neoconservatives, was ideological. It was based on what has been called the theory of democratic dominoes.
In the minds of its promoters, all it took was to invade a country, to overthrow its dictator, to establish a democratic regime there, for the whole of the Middle East to convert by imitation to Western democracy.
This belief was based on a misunderstanding of the history of civilizations.
It is not enough to decree the conversion of a country to democracy from the top of a bomber for it to do so, especially if its culture does not prepare it for it.
Democracy is the fruit of a civilization, not a universal revelation.
Imperialism
This destabilization of the region led a few years later to the formation of the Islamic State, which committed the devastation that we know.
This error was repeated in Libya in 2011, this time leading to a huge migration crisis that has destabilized Europe ever since.
Democratic imperialism has turned into a nightmare. It is not certain that 20 years later, we are aware of it.