Iraq Opinion: Three Thoughts on the War --- Lies, Disaster, and the Unexpected Outcome

A reflection 10 years to the day that US warplanes launched the first phase of the war on Iraq: this was a conflict deliberately designed on deceptions and whose consequences are still proving disastrous - most of all for the Iraqi people.

Far from producing the anticipated result, at least for the Bush Administration, the invasion of Iraq led to the opposite; rather than demonstrating the "unipolar" nature of American power, Iraq has become an ongoing illustration of the limits of that power.

Today, as Iraq tries to recover from the past decade, events extending beyond its borders to the wider Middle East highlight the twist in the tale --- that the US, good or bad, is rarely centre stage. Quite often, it is waiting in the wings.

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WikiLeaks: Israel Bombed Syria Nuclear Reactor in 2007 (YNet)

A confidential cable sent on April 25, 2008 by then-US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to State Department representatives worldwide states that "on September 6 2007, Israel destroyed the nuclear reactor built by Syria secretly, apparently with North Korea's help."

The document is in fact a first official and detailed confirmation of the attack, starting with the intelligence collected before the strike, the cooperation between Israel and the United States, the troubling and harsh conclusions shared by both countries, the Israeli government's decision to bomb Syria and the fear that President Bashar Assad would launch a war in response.

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