Lawrence Wilkerson: Trump’s Iran War Push Is a Replay of Bush’s Iraq War Push

The Trump administration “is using much the same playbook to create a false choice that war is the only way to address the challenges presented by Iran” as the George W. Bush administration used to gain support for the Iraq War. College of William & Mary Professor Lawrence Wilkerson presents this argument, along with abundant supporting evidence, in a Monday New York Times editorial.

Wilkerson should know. In the lead-up to the Iraq War, Wilkerson was chief of staff for United States Secretary of State Colin Powell, whose United Nations presentation regarding Iraq Wilkerson, at the beginning of the editorial, credits with boosting support among Americans for a war against Iraq.

Wilkerson, who is a Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity Academic Board member, has frequently disparaged that effort to build up support for the Iraq War. Indeed, in the editorial he laments that “[t]hat effort led to a war of choice with Iraq – one that resulted in catastrophic losses for the region and the United States-led coalition, and that destabilized the entire Middle East.”

The consequences of a war with Iran would also be dire. Addressing some of those consequences in his editorial, Wilkerson predicts that “this war with Iran – a country of almost 80 million people, whose vast strategic depth and difficult terrain makes it a far greater challenge than Iraq – would be 10 to 15 times worse than the Iraq war in terms of casualties and costs.”

Read Wilkerson’s editorial here.

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

2 thoughts on “Lawrence Wilkerson: Trump’s Iran War Push Is a Replay of Bush’s Iraq War Push”

  1. So, who is Larry Wilkerson? Oh, the former Head Go-Fer for a political appointee? Hangs around with Ron Paul when he’s not teaching?

    Big Whoop.

    Where’s Colin Powell? HE’s the one that needs to stand up and confront the neo-cons that used him and his gravitas to gin up the Iraq invasion. If Powell is physically and mentally able he needs to get off his butt and stand up, once again, to John Bolton, et. al and do what he can to stop this disaster.

    This isn’t a thwack on Wilkerson. But, outside the confines of this website and a few others he’s virtually unknown. He’s a fine man trying his best to stem the tide of the neo-con tsunami but, he ain’t no “Colin Powell”, a brand, if you will, that can add some real gravitas to the opposition.

    Powell had a career of military “service”. Well, Mr. Powell, your country needs you now more than ever if it is to avoid another military catastrophe…perhaps its last.

    Do your duty. Don’t just “fade away”.

    1. for that he’d have to get amnesty and that would entail somebody (Trump or Jefferson Davis Sessions 3rd) signing off on it. Which the Brits invented a term for just such a contingency… “not bloody likely, mate” Especially since the Bush Corporate Crime family policy in re causing harm to any member of the Koalition of the Killing, civil or military or paramilitia like Blackwater. Or Halliburton projects. So Bush put the policy in motion but he and Powell with his little baggie of white powder have systematically slaughtered GIs from a whole slew of vassal states as well as the U.S. (which is itself a vassal state).

      Maybe a congressman or two would be able to finagle the deal.

      And in that vein, Trump has barked much about the Pakistani tribal entities to go along with Iran and N Korea. The fact the ‘leaders’ are getting old…er… might be knocking on heaven’s door and might become frightened by the prospect of not getting in…. That three score and ten threshold can inspire some of them to repent and bring forth fruits worthy of repentance… that could help.

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