George Bush’s Gaffe

For the past few months, we have witnessed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s troops have committed myriad human rights violations, destroyed the infrastructure of a free and independent country, created millions of refugees, and murdered tens of thousands of innocent souls without pretext other than the whim of its’ leader Vladimir Putin.

The United States has rallied the majority of European states (except for Croatia, Hungary, and Turkey, that have authoritarian governments) to form a united front against Russia and imposes strong and costly sanctions. The Russian economy has been weakened, and the Ukrainians have fought bravely and avoided being defeated by Russian troops, while its cities have been levelled and innocent lives lost, ruined or displaced. 

So, you may wonder why the title of this article is “Bush’s Gaffe”.

On May 19th, Reuters reported former President George W. Bush told a Dallas audience that "The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.” He then corrected himself and shaking his head said, "I mean, of Ukraine." He then added, in a lower voice, “and Iraq too”.

This is a gaffe of major proportions. 

Recall that in 2003, Bush launched an unprovoked and illegal attack on Iraq, also a free and independent country, against the wishes of the United Nations Security Council. Some analysts have said that Bush acted from a personal hatred of Saddam Hussein because he had ordered a hit on this father, President George H.W. Bush, during a visit to Kuwait in 1991. Furthermore, then Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, former executives of oil giant Haliburton, convinced Bush that an invasion of Iraq could be paid for by Iraq’s oil reserves that would then be controlled and exploited by the United States after a successful invasion.

Thus, in 2003, the United States invaded Iraq on trumped up charges of weapons of mass destruction. These charges were against international law and later found to be false. One recalls that then Secretary of State Colin Powell was tricked into presenting American intelligence findings that were later proven untrue and manipulated to the U.N. Security Council.

This was disinformation at its core, and it managed to fool many people in Bush’s “Coalition of the Willing” that included the United Kingdom and Spain.

The result has been atrocious.

Iraq is now a weak and divided country, The defeat of the Iraqi army led directly to the emergence of the Islamic State terrorist group that today exerts its violent jihadist beliefs in Iraq and violence globally. Rather than bring peace to a volatile region, America’s action created a power vacuum that has been filled by terrorists and by Iran. Not the result he was seeking.

Fast forward to today.

Bush’s Freudian slip underscores his belief that he acted wrongly with respect to Iraq and that his actions matched Putin’s. While he claims that “old age” provoked the gaffe, he may be recognizing the error of his policy -- a policy that has now come to bite the United States in the ass. 

Many developing countries have refused to follow the U.S. lead and impose sanctions on Russia. Many are run by authoritarian dictators who see in Putin a kindred spirit. Others, like India, are moving towards a more nationalistic and authoritarian outlook and are major markets for Russian military sales. Others meanwhile are questioning the U.S.’s moral and ethical authority to condemn a military action like the one that the U.S. itself undertook in 2003. 

Hence, Bush’s legacy has been to place U.S. moral leadership in the line of fire and to dilute its credibility, influence and ability to impose a respect for international law.

And this loss of credibility, together with the abandonment of respect for international law under the Trump administration, may well affect U.S. pretentions to regain global leadership based on respect for international law and institutions.

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Edición: Laura Espejo