But the fact that he is the wrong person to talk of a war on Islamist terrorism became evident in the second significant event of last week. Senator Joseph Lieberman, who was Al Gore’s deputy in the Democratic bid for the 2000 US presidential election, was defeated in the primary by a little-known candidate. In itself, it is nothing more than provincial news in a foreign country, hardly deserving of people’s attention in the rest of the world. However, it contained an important message that neither the US nor the rest of the world can ignore. Lieberman was trounced because the voters were angry at his support for the Bush administration’s costly, senseless and seemingly endless war in Iraq. The mood in Connecticut is not atypical of the current mood of frustration and anxiety, shared by a majority of the Americans, over the Iraq war. Even The New York Times editorially slammed Bush in unusually harsh words: ‘‘A war that began at the President’s choosing has degenerated into a desperate, bloody mess that has turned much of the world against the United States.’’

Recall all the lies that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld told in the run-up to America’s barbaric war on Iraq in 2003. Till date they have not been able to provide proof for even a single argument in justification of the attack on, occupation of, and coercive regime change in a sovereign country located thousands of miles away. Weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Baghdad’s basements? None found even after the most intrusive of international inspections. Saddam Hussein’s hand in 9/11? Not even the United States’s own official report on 9/11 has bought this fib. And yet, Bush ordered, and Blair acquiesced in, the invasion of Iraq in what was technologically the most awesome display of military power devoid of any moral anchor or legal fig-leaf.

... contd.