This photo shows Russian President Vladimir Putin stands at a podium in front of the Russian flag.
Russian President Vladimir Putin stands at a podium in front of the Russian flag. Credit: ΝΕΑ ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ / Flickr Credit: ΝΕΑ ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ / Flickr

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reckless invasion of Ukraine is starting to resemble the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

When U.S. president George W. Bush unleashed the forces of the world’s greatest military and economic power on a country whose gross domestic product was less than that of several U.S. states, he justified his actions with multiple disingenuous arguments. 

One was that Iraq was somehow in league with Al-Qaeda, which had authored the attacks in the U.S. on September 11, 2001.

However, Al-Qaeda was not based in Iraq nor was it allied with the regime of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The U.S.-led invasion actually opened the door for paramilitary groups such as Al-Qaeda and, later, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The other major pretext for a U.S. invasion was that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Despite elaborate U.S. efforts to prove the case, including a slick presentation at the UN, that claim too turned out to be without foundation in fact. 

Bush’s secretary of state, the late Colin Powell, subsequently apologized for the deception, as did Bush’s closest ally, then British prime minister Tony Blair.

In Iraq, what the Americans sought was something they called “regime change.” U.S. strategists believed a liberal-democratic Iraq would serve as a model and a beacon for the rest of the Middle-East and North-African region. Or, at least, that is what they said. 

In reality, as anyone who dealt with U.S. officials and consultants in the post-war reconstruction period knows, the U.S. was far more interested in what they called marketization – making Iraq open to business, especially U.S. business – than in democratization. 

The Halliburton oil field services company is one of many Western corporations that profited handsomely from operations in U.S.-occupied Iraq.

Putin wants to be Emperor Vlad the Great 

What does Putin want to achieve by invading and, potentially, occupying Ukraine? 

It is instructive to note that Ukraine and Iraq are remarkably similar in certain respects. Iraq’s population is 41 million on a territory of 430,317 square kilometres. Ukraine has about the same number of people, but on a somewhat larger territory, 603,628 square kilometres.

A former Canadian diplomat who served twice in Russia sees it this way:

For the most part Putin basically wants two things – security for Russia and the respect he feels is due to Russia and to him as the head of a “great power.” 

The problem is that for the last decade there has been no way to give him what he wants — largely because he does not believe what those in the West tell him (for example, that NATO has no intention of attacking Russia). 

Part of this is because of Putin’s past. He is a child of the Cold War and was a KGB agent. Part is because he has valid reasons not to believe what the West says. Russia believes that it was systematically misled in the period after the [Berlin] Wall fell. That is partly the result of their misunderstanding of what the West said, but also because the West did lie. 

In the ‘90s and early 2000s we in the West (mostly the Americans) found Russia was too inconvenient or hard to deal with respectfully. We adopted a “We won the Cold War — get over it” approach, and ignored Russian interests. 

For example, we told then Russian president, and Putin’s ally, [Dmitry] Medvedev, that we had no intention of attacking Libya, one day before our bombing began in 2011. 

It was one thing for NATO to enlarge to take in the Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia) which the USSR had absorbed in 1940. It was another thing for NATO to announce in 2008 it would take former historical parts of Russia, namely Ukraine and Georgia. 

We almost went to war over Russian missiles in Cuba, why do we find it so hard to believe Russia would not want Western missiles in Ukraine? 

Thus, Putin is basically paranoid about Western intentions. And now, given the weakness of the U.S., he feels he can take risks.

As for the sanctions — Putin knows a lot of Europe will not take the key measures that would really wound Russia – cutting off oil and gas completely. And he believes, not without cause, that U.S. President Biden’s (and democracy’s) hold on the U.S. is very weak.

Putin also knows he has a friend in former U.S. president Donald Trump, who has already demonstrated he cares not at all for European interests.

Reasonably there is no need for Putin to invade Ukraine, but he is no longer a reasonable man. 

Ukrainian-Russian history is complex and deeply interwoven. A lot of people in Russia simply do not grasp the idea of Ukraine being a separate country. They consider the Ukrainians to be family. In the long run this may be the saving factor. The Russian public will find it hard to accept Russia bombing their cousins. And, believe it or not, public opinion does matter in Russia. Maybe not in the same way as here but it does. It is something Putin has to worry about. 

Another very relevant factor is Putin’s ambitions with regard to his place in history. At the UN, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken attributed Putin’s ambition to a new pan-Slavic nationalism. It is almost the only motivation that may make sense of an invasion that does not otherwise make sense at all for Russia. 

It is the kind of idea that appeals to a megalomaniac (and after too long in power most dictators tend that way). Thus, it only needs traction in a few minds and not in the public. And a pan-Slavic empire without Ukraine is not pan-Slavic at all.

The bottom line may be that Putin is not just paranoid but also – fed by his power and his fawning adherents who are mainly the only people he sees or talks to – a megalomaniac. He sees himself as the creator (or re-creator) of the “Great Pan-Slavic Empire.” 

This is not reconstituting the old USSR. It is, rather, an extremely nationalistic, quasi-religious, and thus much more dangerous, crusade to build an empire based on ethnicity. 

Putin wants to be “Emperor Vlad the Great.” 

Ukraine and Russia both have a fascist problem

I asked this former diplomat about Putin’s use of the epithets “fascists” or “Nazis” to describe the Ukrainians. Here is his nuanced response:

The issue of fascists in Ukraine is a complex one. Germany certainly found lots of Ukrainian allies in [the Second World War]. Some were like-minded, some saw it as a way of fighting Russia. The guards in the Warsaw Ghetto were mainly Ukrainian.

Following the Maidan uprising in 2014, initial attempts at forming a government included some fascists. That coalition did nasty things, such as declaring all use of the Russian language in schools and the media illegal. 

Ukrainian voters, and subsequent governments, got rid of the fascists quickly, but they were there long enough for the Russians to notice them, and file away for future use. 

The far-right militia Azov Battalion is openly fascist. It has roots going back to the early days of Ukrainian independence in the 1990s. There have been news flare-ups about Canadians training them or diplomats meeting them (in 2015 and again recently). Yes, they are armed. They have fought the Russian-speaking separatists in the eastern Donbas region. And they claim to have been among the most effective against the Russians in that effort. 

No Ukrainian president has been strong enough to get rid of them. It is a problem many militaries have but it is strong in Ukraine. Of course, the extreme right in the Russian military is also a major problem. Putin deals with them by calling them patriots in the service of his pan-Slavic vision. 

Extreme-right militias were a threat to Putin in his early years as president. He solved the problem by jumping in front of them and taking leadership of their cause. His message to them was: “Hey, it turns out we are going the same way.” 

A decade ago, the far right was almost invisible in Russian media. More recently, they became predominant.  

In reality, it takes gall for Putin to criticize Ukraine about its fascists, but it is not a quality Putin lacks. 

The U.S. adventure in Iraq did not work out according to plan. Will Putin’s Ukraine adventure turn out any better for him? 

Even at this early stage there is one ominous sign for Russia. It is suffering major casualties on the battlefield. There are no reliable figures, but even Putin admits Russian soldiers have died, and more than a small handful. He calls those dead soldiers heroes.

But, over time, if the casualties continue to mount, how will Putin explain the loss of their sons to Russian mothers? 

After all, the Russian leader claims the current action is not a war or invasion, but rather a mere “peacekeeping” exercise to “protect” Russia’s Ukrainian cousins.

Karl Nerenberg

Karl Nerenberg joined rabble in 2011 to cover Canadian politics. He has worked as a journalist and filmmaker for many decades, including two and a half decades at CBC/Radio-Canada. Among his career highlights...