The year 2023 is the year remembered as the 20th anniversary for the war of aggression against Iraq -- without explicit UN resolution -- that changed the world for the worse before it gets any better -- yet little has been discussed on the need to get the architects of the illegal Iraq war to face trial.
When the legislative and judiciary fail to put the illegal Iraq war criminal leaders on trial, some legal experts, notably the legal academics, privately say it is high time the military establishment placed their political masters on trial.
The American political elites could have learnt lessons from the Vietnam War -- yet it didn't because the arrogance and Western superiority complex of “we know it all” took over their senses.
This was certainly the case when it came to the illegal 2003 Iraq war, whose war architects counted British-American right-wing pro-Zionism orientalist Bernard Lewis and Israeli settler colonial war crime-apologist Natan Sharansky among their key influencers.
What makes the Iraq war more even devastating is that the war was based on lies under false pretexts, presumably alongside the agenda to advance certain strategic interests at the cost of one million innocent lives and over 4000–5000 soldiers' lives.
However, the political war criminal leaders, the key architects of the illegal aggression (ie, Bush, Blair, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Perle, Feith, Hadley, Rice, Kristol, Kagan, Elliott Abrams, former UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Campbell, Scarlett, and others) still roam free without facing any consequences, or worse, reaping lavish benefits and rewards with full state honours after leaving office.
Yet it is over a million innocent Iraqis and soldiers who ultimately paid the price with their lives, while serving self-serving right-wing Judeo-Christian white supremacist political masters with vested neocon ideological and corporate interests.
In fact, if there is one sector that really benefited from the million dead Iraqi bodies, it is the American corporate sector that reaped over $138 billion from the Iraq war, with 10 contractors winning a total of $72bn among them, many of which have deep ties to the above Iraq war architects.
However the ultimate blame for illegal war and subsequent war crimes lies with the ruling-class political elites that sent those soldiers (often coming from low-income working class) in the first place.
It is therefore important that the war criminal or illegal war-waging politicians and generals be placed on trial for recklessly taking the nation to wreak havoc and destruction in the Middle East -- leaving post-invasion circumstances far worse off. This needs to happen so as to deter future political elites from misusing the lives of soldiers and innocent foreigners in their pastime neo-conservative game.
Recently, the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague, at an unprecedented speed -- and rightly so -- issued arrest warrants against President Putin of Russia for war crimes by his armed forces in the course of war of aggression against Ukraine.
Yet ironically, ICC refuses to investigate or issue arrest warrants against the war criminal leaders and above architects of the Iraq war. Likewise, ICC to date refuses to issue arrest warrants against US-backed Israeli war crime leaders. Rather, it was the US that enacted Hague Invasion Act to use its armed forces to “liberate” US-backed suspected war criminals indicted by the court. It is therefore left to domestic institutions to try and hold those responsible for the illegal invasion to account.
It is clear to see that the political establishment and the legislative in respective countries, ie, Congress and the Parliament and the judiciary, have failed to hold the political war criminal leaders and their influential advisers to account -- those who are ultimately responsible for the war of aggression.
It is therefore about time the military establishment takes over by invoking the “doctrine of necessity” and try their political war criminal masters under military laws for playing with the lives of their soldiers in unleashing mass destruction and terror in the region, thus creating a hotbed for sectarian-led civil wars and apocalyptic militant groups like ISIS.
Perhaps it is about time the military establishments in the US and the UK be given veto powers over foreign policies that can lead to unjustified costly foreign wars, for the military establishment will be better equipped to understand the hard ground realities of war and the damage it inflicts on others than the out-of-touch ideologically-driven political warmongering ruling elites.
After all, the armed forces should have the veto on wars they are being asked to execute and engage in if they, in theory, may face potential consequences in the event of war crimes and crimes of aggression -- as the Nuremberg Trials showed.
In the post-Cold War era world order, it was the illegal Iraq war waged by the US and the UK that set the precedent for invading another sovereign nation under false pretext and lies, therefore enabling other major powers and rogue states later to follow suit or use the precedent already set. We are already witnessing it now in the form of a war of aggression waged by Russia -- once again under alleged false pretext.
Until there is no accountability and consequences faced by the architects of the illegal war of aggression against Iraq, expect more future illegal aggressions against sovereign countries. It is about time the military establishments step into the void which the Congress and the Parliament, along with the courts, are so eager to avoid.
Ismail Y Syed is a research scholar in Arab, Muslim, and Middle Eastern studies and Middle East strategic adviser based in London UK; a former London-based banker at HSBC covering Middle East and South Asia clients; a contributor columnist for Asian newspapers. He can be followed on Twitter @IsmailYSyed.
