Militarism: New Iraq Crisis Proves Failure Of War Policy

David Cameron was on D-day form in Parliament on Wednesday. Freshly back from visiting veterans on the Normandy beaches who heroically defeated fascism, he tried to turn this into a justification for interventionist military activity elsewhere.

Perhaps he ought to reflect for a moment that since 2001, 13 years ago, Britain has been heavily involved in wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, and also supported military action in Mali.

Successive prime ministers including Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have presided over an enormous expansion of Nato into a global force and through the Lisbon Treaty have linked Nato and EU membership as far as possible making them one and the same thing.

But if Cameron, Barack Obama and French President Hollande looked briefly around the world they would see the consequences of Western intervention.

While no-one was complacent about the human rights record of Saddam Hussein, Iraq was not threatening anyone else in 2003 and most certainly was not a centre of al-Qaida operations.

After 10 years, at least $1 trillion dollars of military spending and the loss of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, there is now a major insurgency which has swept the Iraqi army before it in Mosul and Tikrit, causing hundreds of thousands to flee.

How much longer before the Iraqi government asks for the re-engagement of Western forces to protect Baghdad and the country’s oil wells?

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