In March 2003, a million people took to the streets of London to oppose the illegal invasion of Iraq. Seeing straight through the lie that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, protesters warned the British government in no uncertain terms: This action would trigger a spiral of misery, hatred and death.More than 20 years on, most people now recognise the Iraq war for what it was: a catastrophic mistake that fuelled a string of subsequent conflicts and instability. The United Kingdom had followed the United States into an illegal war – and more than a million Iraqi men, women and children paid the price.Unfortunately, not everybody has learned the lessons from the past. It has been almost a month since the US and Israel launched their attacks on Iran. More than 1,400 Iranians and more than 1,000 Lebanese people have been killed.In seeking to justify the bombing, US President Donald Trump spoke of the need to eliminate “imminent threats from the Iranian regime”, whose “menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas and our allies throughout the world”. He said the goal was to make sure Iran “will never have a nuclear weapon”. Sound familiar?The first casualty of war is the truth, s …
