Reasons the Conflict with Iran is Giving Us Iraq War Flashbacks

The assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani by an American drone strike near the Baghdad International Airport last week has brought the U.S. to the precipice of yet another war in the Middle East.

The Trump administration’s sudden, violent confrontation with Iran stands in contrast to the methodical march to war with Iraq under George W. Bush and his neoconservative cabinet in 2003. But the rhetoric around the two conflicts has been strikingly similar — as has the reliance on “razor thin” evidence of an imminent threat to establish a cause for war.

As a journalist who cataloged the lies of the last Republican administration that led America into war with Iraq, the Trump administration’s sketchy justifications for the present conflict, foolish predictions of joyous uprising by the Iranian people, and utter disregard for the question of what comes next, are creating flashbacks of the worst order.

Below are five unsettling parallels between the run-up to violence in Iraq in 2003 and Iran in 2020:

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https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/six-flashbacks-iran-iraq-war-934222/