Stop Blaming Israel for the Iraq War

People keep repeating this fantasy that America went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan “for Israel,” as if Washington needed instructions from anyone else after 9/11. The historical record shows the opposite. When the Bush administration was moving toward Baghdad, Israel wasn’t the one banging the war drums. Ariel Sharon’s government was actually warning the U.S. that Iraq wasn’t the priority and that destabilizing it would create a long-term mess Washington wasn’t ready for.

The famous Netanyahu clip people circulate came later, when it was already obvious the U.S. was committed to invasion with or without Israeli input. And he wasn’t prime minister at the time. That moment wasn’t Israel pushing America into war. It was Israel recognizing reality: the United States had already made its decision and wasn’t asking for permission.

If you want to understand what actually went wrong, look at what happened after the invasion. The U.S. dissolved the Ba’ath Party and dismantled Iraq’s entire governing structure overnight, creating an instant power vacuum and the perfect conditions for insurgency. The failure was not Israel’s influence. It was Washington’s own strategic malpractice. The myth survives only because it’s easier to blame a foreign country than to confront America’s own record.