Vice President JD Vance shocked many people throughout the Atlantic. Recent interviews with Unherd He insisted it Europe should have done more He stopped the war with Saddam Hussein more than 20 years ago. According to the Vice President, standing in the US when it was particularly necessary was a mistake.
This provides an important sign for our allies to portray their future.
Many in Europe were rightly skeptical of the idea that democracy could be introduced by armed intervention in Iraq, believing that war could only turn an injustice into a failed state. The failed state is better than the illicit state with weapons of mass destruction, but Baghdad, after all, did not own such weapons. This defeated all previous calculations. Especially when the world learns that a new, failed state has become a breeding ground for pathologies such as terrorism, organized crime, drug trafficking, and illegal migration.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld contrasted with “old Europe,” which was building an anti-American alliance with the “new Europe” that supported the United States under the leadership of French President Jacques Chillac and German Prime Minister Gerhard Schroeder. The French president said it was Poland at the time. I wasted the opportunity to “sit quietly” – And Vance now agrees with him.
Polish public opinion saw the intervention in Iraq dimly, but Polish political elites saw it as a way to strengthen the alliance between the United States and the country’s international status. Regardless of which party holds power, the “instinctive convention” won. When Defense Secretary Rumsfeld labeled Poland as the most pro-American country in the world, including the United States, he wasn’t far from the truth.
Poland sent conditions A 2,500-man squad to Iraq in 2003. After Danish refusal, the Poles were responsible for the South Central Zone, where around 4 million Iraqis lived, and commanded the multinational division Central South-CS. The Polish-led sector included 8,500 troops from 22 countries. Furthermore, the Polish forces in Iraq did not avoid losses. 28 Paul lost his life and 150 people were injured.
Participation in the Iraqi operation was rated by Polish facilities as military success, political pull-in and economic failure. The experience gained in logistics, operations, and commanders over important multinational forces was applied to military reform and the introduction of specialized military forces. Poland’s political independence and institutions on the international stage have also been strengthened. However, expecting economic benefits in the form of favorable contracts for Polish companies did not come true.
So until recently, we — overall — believed that we were right at the time to support the United States. But Vice President Vance claims we have joined the wrong side. By being militarily involved in Iraq as US “vassals,” we contributed to a strategic disaster. In other words, we were suckers. They should have opposed Washington along with “formerly Europe.”
But the Vice President’s view is historical. In 2003, there was no force that could prevent President George W. Bush’s administration from invading Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein. The United States would have launched military operations without allies, even if the legitimacy of such a war had declined. A few years after the Iraqi invasion, enormous costs (human, finances, politics) became apparent, transforming the American people towards the entire corporation.
The Vice President suggests to American allies that they should actively oppose our moves they find suspicious or misguided. If they do not do so, they will be declared co-responsive to strategic disasters of US policy like Iraq. But was this actually the intended message from JD Vance?
Jacek Czaputowicz was Poland’s Foreign Minister from 2018 to 2020. He is a professor at the University of Warsaw.
