How Trump’s War in Iran Has Echoes of Putin and Ukraine (www.nytimes.com)
from breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca to world@lemmy.world on 08 Mar 20:57
https://lemmy.ca/post/61500417

The many similarities between the White House’s justification for war in Iran and Russia’s messaging on Ukraine underscore the risks of a vaguely defined, open-ended war.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said last Monday that the United States “didn’t start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it.”

After he invaded Ukraine in 2022, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia put it this way: “We didn’t start the so-called war in Ukraine. Rather, we are trying to finish it.”

Mr. Putin’s war was a disastrous ground invasion of a fledgling democracy. Mr. Trump’s war on Iran is a sophisticated bombing campaign against an aggressive theocracy that was killing its own people in the streets. But some similarities are uncanny, starting with the White House and the Kremlin both trying to avoid calling their actions acts of war.

. . .

Shifting objectives, an exaggerated threat, an ambiguous mission: The many Russian echoes in the White House’s messaging on Iran underscore the risks of a vaguely defined, open-ended war in which the attacking party pins its hopes on regime change.

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