What George W. Bush did in Iraq 20 years ago, Vladimir Putin has now wanted to repeat in Ukraine. Those illegalities and injustices of yesterday serve him to demand today the right to his own illegalities and injustices. The lies and the falsifications are similar, as are the authentic motives, those of then and those of now. The immense strength that is available explains the irrepressible appetite to use it without measure. And appetite, in turn, like a fish that bites its tail, looks for arguments, lies and falsifications in a law of force that is imposed on the force of law.
The United States wanted to overthrow Saddam Hussein in revenge for the terrorist defiance of 9/11, democratize the Middle East by guns, and show who ruled the world. The Russian Federation has also wanted to overthrow the kyiv regime in revenge for the disappearance of the Soviet Union, change the European order and show the baton to the neighbors. Only time and dimensions change, also the moral ones. Limited, hesitant, even open to amendment, in the case of a liberal superpower where power is distributed thanks to the rule of law. Monstrous, ruthless, cynical, where it is concentrated and perverted by the verticality of despotism.
A mistake and a crime in both cases. In the motives, in the form and in the catastrophic results, exactly the opposite of those sought. Instead of asserting or expanding power, they give the adversary an advantage. As in any war, it was known how it began in that one, but until very recently it was hardly known if it had ended. Bad, in any case. It will also happen in Ukraine, with a terrifying balance of death and destruction that lags behind or perhaps exceeds that of yesteryear in terms of the speed and dimension of the slaughter and demolition of the invaded country. Some received an unexpected gift from the United States, especially Iran, but also China, which is now receiving another from Russia.
From the war arise the great changes in the world order. It drove the United States out of the Middle East and ruined its reputation. She questioned ties to the European Union. She divided the Europeans. Spain gave the biggest swerve in its recent history in foreign policy. Aznar was photographed with Bush and Blair in the Azores. The British Prime Minister sunk his entire reputation there and later regretted it, unlike Aznar, who continues to puff up. If in the failure of Washington at that time, Moscow and Beijing found the footstool on which to perch their revisionist and imperial ambitions, in today’s it will be China who will try to seize entire Eurasian hegemony at the expense of a Russia exhausted by war and sanctions.
That Bush war with which Putin justifies his explains the current disorder in the world after 20 years. China, following Sun Tzu’s advice, wins the wars it doesn’t fight.
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