It was a cataclysmic blunder. Yet, one cannot resist wondering: Was it really a blunder? Who knows, maybe it was George W. Bush taking advantage of his well-established reputation for making “Bushisms” in order to express the deep regret that had been gnawing at his conscience for so many years, and use what may have appeared as a Freudian slip in a subtle attempt to redeem himself and put his tortured conscience at ease. He himself had admitted in his memoir Decision Points (2010) that “No one was more shocked and angry [sic] than I was when we didn’t find the weapons [of mass destruction, in Iraq].”

The faux pas provoked what came across as an uneasy laughter from Bush’s audience, something which was not particularly appreciated in Arabic-speaking countries. Many MENAs (Middle Easterners and North Africans) did not share the mirthful- albeit embarrassed- reaction of the audience to that gaffe. They took to social media, wrote comments and articles, and argued among themselves and with others that given the hardships the Iraqi people have endured as a result of America’s invasion of Iraq, the whole thing was certainly no laughing matter. Some MENAs have gone so far as to invite people to imagine Putin in his old age making humourous comments about the war in Ukraine, and they asked those people whether they would find that amusing.

To be sure, both the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 were illegal wars, in view of the fact that neither of them had an authorization from the United Nations. Both have inflicted much suffering on civilians. Both seem to many people to be unjustified. Yet, no matter how strong the international opposition to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was, the international response to the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 seems to be much more vigorous and extensive by comparison, particularly in Western countries. Why is that? Well, one reason may be because Ukraine has a democratically-elected government. In contrast, Saddam Hussein was a brutal tyrant. Another reason could be because Ukraine has not invaded any other nation. Saddam’s Iraq had invaded Iran in 1980, and then invaded peaceful Kuwait in 1990, thereby leading to a war with the UN-led coalition that liberated Kuwait in 1991. In other words, people perceived Ukraine as a peaceful country, but they had viewed Iraq as a country with a remarkable rap sheet. Yet, upon deeper reflection, one may detect a third, less obvious reason: Unlike Iraq in 2003, Ukraine in 2022 was invaded by a  non-Western country. This may help us understand the numerous steps taken by various Western countries in order to help Ukraine in a manner that was never applied in the case of Iraq to anywhere near the same extent: The wide-ranging economic sanctions imposed on Russia, the extensive supply of weaponry to Ukraine, the near-hysterical hostility to Russia and Russians, especially in the mass media, and so forth.

While one certainly feels much sympathy for the innocent civilians of Ukraine, a sober, detached, and cool-headed comparison between the two above-mentioned invasions suggests that the invasion of Ukraine is actually the lesser of the two evils. That is because of one major reason: Saddam’s Iraq never in fact posed any serious threat to the national security of the US or that of the UK. The accusations made up by those two countries to the effect that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction and that it was linked to Al-Qaeda were simply baseless. By contrast, Russia’s strong fears about the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO are understandable. In fact, Russia’s opposition to the NATO membership of any country that has common borders with it is quite reasonable. One has to bear in mind that in 1962, the US nearly started the Third (and what could have been the Last) World War because the Soviet Union had placed ballistic missiles in Cuba, something which JFK rightly deemed to be too much of a threat to the national security of the United States at that time. Likewise, expanding NATO membership to include countries that are situated next door to Russia is too much of a threat to Russia’s national security.

At this juncture, one has to ask oneself: What could the US-led NATO have done to prevent the outbreak of the Ukraine war? The answer lies in the pursuit of “inclusive self-interest”, that is the pursuit of national self-interest within the context of the collective interest of humanity as a whole. Nations may feel free to pursue their national objectives, but they should refrain from doing so at the cost of threatening other nations’ national security. Rather than encouraging the continual expansion of NATO to a point where Russians felt extremely threatened, the US in particular could have sat down with Russia and discussed the possibility of rendering European ex-Communist countries neutral. The neutrality of those nations would have had to be guaranteed on the basis of agreements involving Russia, the US, the EU, and China. Some may of course protest that sovereign nations should have the right to choose which organizations to join, and that forcing such nations to be neutral would be a violation of their sovereignty. Perhaps. However, the true art of politics consists in sagacious pragmatism, not in wild idealism. Ideal situations- no matter how attractive- may sometimes have to be discarded in favour of a more sensible, less destructive policy. This proposed scenario may not have been perfect for everyone, but it would undoubtedly have been far wiser than pushing Russia to the wall by posing a very serious threat to its national security, something which has now led to the war in Ukraine.

In politics, especially in international politics, nothing is more destructive than the will-o’-the-wisp idealism of well-meaning but misguided heads. It is not for nothing that Otto von Bismarck once said, “Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable- the art of the next best.”