Iraq’s recent history includes two far reaching events, on the 2 August 1990 Iraq’s invasion into Kuwait and on 19 March 2024 the US/UK invasion into Iraq. Whether political leaders will draw lessons from these events will be, at best, questionable. Iraqis continue to be wronged. Danger to life and turmoil remain a cruel part of Iraq’s reality in early 2024. The collective suffering of a nation is visibly all pervasive. It can not be hidden.
Soon after the joint US-British bombing campaign “Operation Desert Fox” devastated parts of Iraq in December 1998 , I was complaining to a friend in the lobby of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad.
When Madeleine Albright asked in May 1996 about the death of half a million Iraqi children as a result of UN sanctions, she said: "we think the price is worth it." By "it" she meant US interests, propping US hegemony, and preparing for regional military action.
In direct reaction to Israel provoking the Al Aqsa Intifada, on October 19, 2024, the then United Nations Human Rights Commission (now Council) condemned Israel for inflicting “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” upon the Palestinian people, some of whom are Christians, but most of whom are Muslims.[i]
What we are witnessing is not an irrational output from a basically rational society but the converse: the “rational” output of a fundamentally irrational system. Does this mean these horrors are inescapable? No, they are not made of supernatural forces. They are produced by plutocratic greed and deception.