How not to repeat Iraqi mistakes with Russia

In the last two or three weeks, we have seen a very active intensification of the hybrid war. The Russian Federation is activating its agents among professional pacifists to spread the movement against arming Ukraine around the world. There is an explosive spread of fake news in the global media and social networks.

Russia and Putin's favorite way of doing things is to raise the stakes at each new stage. And now we have a new situation for the Russian dictator, when it is extremely difficult for him to play his favorite game. Russia has almost exhausted the possibilities for escalating the war by conventional means. Moreover, Russia will definitely lose on the battlefield in a conventional war. The year 2021 ended with Putin threatening the world with a major war in the hope of gaining control of Ukraine without it. Now he has been trying to do so for a year without success. And during the year of war, he has not only not come closer to his goal, but on the contrary, he has shown everyone that his army is not such a terrible force.

“Putin threatened the world with a major war in the hope of gaining control of Ukraine without it. Now he has been trying to do so for a year without success. And during the year of war, he has not only not come closer to his goal, but on the contrary, he has shown everyone that his army is not such a terrible force.”

Therefore, he has only two levers of pressure left: threats of nuclear weapons and strengthening the hybrid component of the war.

I also noticed an interesting phenomenon. For the past two weeks, Russian TV channels have been talking a lot about the US operations against Iraq and Saddam Hussein. In general, they are constantly talking about the dramatic end of dictators like Gaddafi and Hussein.

In general, it's good that they are talking. Whether consciously or not, Russian propagandists are making Russians think about how Putin would look in such pictures as those of Saddam and Gaddafi being punished.

“Whether consciously or not, Russian propagandists make Russians think about how Putin would look in such pictures as those of Saddam and Gaddafi being punished.”

But there is another allusion to Iraq. The Russian Federation was compared to Iraq not only because Saddam Hussein also saw his main mission as creating problems for his neighbors. There is an important lesson there that the United States and the world learned. After defeating Saddam during the war for the liberation of Kuwait, the West hoped that the dictator would fall as a result of defeat and an internal coup. This did not happen. Because Iraqi propaganda presented the situation inside the country as if the allied forces did not dare to cross the Iraqi border because they were afraid of the anger of the Iraqis and the power of the Iraqi army. They told tales of how the Iraqi army met the allied forces at the border and did not allow them to enter Iraqi soil. In fact, the allied forces did not intend to go beyond the liberation of Kuwait's territory. After the defeat, the regime resisted and continued to prepare new wars. To finally finish Saddam, we had to fight again.

And now many people understand that when Russian troops are thrown out of Ukraine, but there is no occupation of Russia, the Putin regime will tell its population the same thing: they did not dare to cross the borders of Russia because they are afraid of the Russian spirit, because of nuclear weapons and so on. And the rascism will continue to stink. How to avoid repeating Iraq's mistakes is a question that has not yet been answered.

Especially for Espreso TV. 

About the author. Olha Len, journalist.

The editors do not always share the opinions expressed by the authors of the blogs.