Israel's confrontation with Iran bear little similarity to the Iraq War: distinct adversary, separate geopolitical landscape, and unique strategic objectives.
Both the right and the left are whipping up the chaos in Iraq to try to vilify the Jewish State.
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Writer: Brendan O'Neill, Chief Political Writer
June 18, 2025 Image credit: Getty.Politics. World. Want to read our website ad-free? Become a our website supporter.
Remember when Saddam Hussein backed a band of fascists that stormed America and raped and murdered thousands of Americans? And when he funded a radical group of religious fanatics to launch thousands of rockets at people in Leeds and Manchester here in the UK? And when he himself launched ballistic missiles that struck New York City and London? Never heard of it. So, it's strange that Israel's battle against its ruthless tormentors in Tehran is being compared to the 2003 Iraq War – for Iran has carried out all the atrocities against the Jewish nation that Saddam never did, and dreams of more.
The Israel-Iran debate is in danger of being hijacked by propaganda. Gaslighting swirls everywhere in it. Israel's detractors call it a "regime change scheme," and we all know the terrible things that spring from "regime change." It's an "illegal war" and a "war of aggression," claims the Left. And the ultimate trump card: it's Iraq all over again. Both the digital right and digital left are "invoking the specter of Iraq," as stated in the New York Times. "Welcome to Iraq 2.0," says the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft**. But worse – Israel's unprovoked attack on Iran could potentially be "far, far more catastrophic," they claim.
The blindness on display here is immense. Comparing Israel's fight against its fanatical oppressors in Tehran to America and Britain's futile and disastrous war on Iraq is ignorant of both historical truth and moral principle. First, there's the fact that Saddam's regime never attacked us. This was a wrecked nation, weakened by the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s and the West's sanctions and aerial bombardments of the 1990s. By 2003, Iraq hardly presented a threat to its neighbors, let alone to powerful America or Britain. Washington and London's depiction of this beleaguered regime as a threat to the world was the darkest of dark propaganda. It was the lie that unleashed unimaginable horrors.
The Israel-Iran conflict is the exact opposite of this. Iran has attacked Israel incessantly and brutally. Its neofascist proxy forces in Hamas sent a 6,000-strong army into Israel in October 2023, raping and murdering hundreds. Its most critical proxy – Hezbollah – followed up this rampage with barrages of missiles into northern Israel. Between Hamas's rampage and June of last year, Hezbollah fired 5,000 rockets and other projectiles at Israel. This forced the evacuation of 60,000 people and the deaths of dozens of civilians, including 12 Druze children. Iran itself has directly fired missiles at Israel: 120 ballistic missiles in April 2024; 200 in October 2024.
Trying to brand Israel as "regime changers" and Iran as an Iraq-styled victim is a ridiculous distortion of the truth. This is the black propaganda of this conflict. The minimization of Iran's threat to Israel is as gross a lie as the exaggeration of Iraq's threat to the West. Anybody who speaks against Israel's strikes on Iran while ignoring what Iran has done to Israel has forfeited their right to be taken seriously on this issue. Their goal is not to inform but to confuse, with the intent of criminalizing Israel and absolving the Islamic Republic.
For the comparison of Israel to Iraq to carry moral weight, Saddam would have had to have attacked the US and the UK – mercilessly. In Britain, with a population of 70 million compared to Israel's almost 10 million, he would have had to have financed a terror army that slaughtered 8,400 of our people. And sponsored radical extremists who fired 35,000 rockets at our cities, causing nearly half a million Brits to be displaced. And fired 2,500 of his own missiles directly at our cities. I was staunchly against the Iraq War, but if Saddam had inflicted such horrors on my countrymen, I would have supported action against him. I'm an anti-imperialist, not a pacifist.
Regionally, too, the Iraq comparison shows how historically detached Israel's critics are. The worst thing about the Iraq War was that it was a devastating attack on a destitute nation. War with Iran, war with Kuwait, war with its own freedom-seeking Kurdish population, war with America, the UN-imposed partition of its lands, the UN's sanctions causing widespread hunger and disease – Iraq was a feeble, fragile country in 2003. 'Our' war against it was more a dramatic play meant to save face than a genuine protective action with deadly consequences.
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Iran, conversely, is an influential player in the Middle East. It does pose a strategic threat. It extents its ideological influence through proxy forces to extend its theocratic rule across the region. It has fought brutal proxy wars with Saudi Arabia, most notably in Yemen. And it evidently endangers Israel. Its missiles and its proxy forces' rampages are evidence of that. Iran's dream – candidly – is to eradicate the Jewish State. Which other nation on Earth would be urged to simply stand by while its extremist neighbor, through both word and deed, expresses a clear desire for its annihilation?
The "invoking of the specter of Iraq" merits mockery. If people want to oppose Western assistance for Israel's war with Iran, that's their choice. I don't want to see Western troops in Iran – let the IDF and the mullahs fight this war that Iran started. But the anger toward Israel for waging a forever war, the frenzied portrayal of Israel's leaders as modern-day Bushes or Blairs promising the world nothing but disaster, reeks of political naivety. The addiction to the easy anti-war positions of the 2000s has blinded people to the moral and even civilizational questions raised by the multi-faceted Islamist effort to eradicate the Jewish State.
Israel's critics see themselves as champions of peace. Truly? By railing against Israel for retaliating against a regime that has inflicted extreme violence on its people, they are effectively instructing the Jewish State to live quietly alongside an existential danger. They want to preserve the pre-existing status quo in which the constant threat of annihilation hangs over Israel. They see the existential peril faced by the Jews of Israel as a small price to pay for the tranquility of non-Jews. That's not peace – it's shifting the burden of war onto the Jews to save non-Jews' hides.
It's understandable that Iraq ignited a new isolationism. But it's clear now that concern about that war has hardened into a deep and worrisome cynicism where military action of any kind is viewed skeptically. The role of the "Iraq specter" in public discourse is less to promote a principled opposition to Western intervention in the affairs of other nations than to instill a politics of prudence, encouraging every nation to batten down the hatches lest "another Iraq" occurs. Between this cautious isolationism and the imperial hubris of those who destroyed Iraq, there's something else: internationalism, support for democratic liberation everywhere. Israel has a right to defend itself against anti-Semitic tyrants, and Iranians have the right to choose their own leaders – those are my uneasy positions.
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Brendan O'Neill is our website's chief political writer and host of the our website podcast, The Brendan O'Neill Show. Subscribe to the podcast here. His new book – After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilization – is available to order on Amazon UK and Amazon US now. And find Brendan on Instagram: @burntoakboy
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The Israel-Iran conflict is not reminiscent of the Iraq War, as some claim
The comparison between Israel and Saddam Hussein's Iraq is flawed
Criticizing Israel while ignoring Iran's attacks on it is a distortion of the truth and an attempt to criminalize Israel
