As the US strikes Iran while Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drags on, questions grow about selective enforcement of international law and a long record of flawed intelligence assessments.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has probably looked at what is happening in Iran and asked: “Why didn’t Russia get similar treatment from the US when its murderous dictator invaded Ukraine?”

This is the problem when one leading world power assumes the role of international policeman and law enforcer. That power inevitably chooses which laws to enforce against which perpetrators and with what level of punishment.

Moreover, that power does the enforcing with limited judgment and often flawed intelligence.

Since World War II the US has made far more bad assessments of other countries’ capacities than good ones.

In 1950-1953, it fought against the North Korean communists – taking three years to beat them back and then retreat to where they had started from. US intelligence underestimated the North Koreans’ resolve and underestimated the capacity and willingness of the Soviet Union and China to support them.

The same in Vietnam, where it won, or at least did not lose, virtually every battle, but lost the war. US intelligence and its military grossly under-estimated the North; overestimated domestic resolve and its soldiers’ morale and underestimated domestic political resistance to the war.

In Afghanistan it took 20 years of fighting before again achieving nothing but the return of the hellish Taliban.

In the first Gulf War President George H W Bush successfully pushed Saddam Hussein’s forces out of Kuwait. He urged Iraqis to rise up against him, but stood by as Saddam’s forces mowed them down when they responded.

Again, US intelligence grossly under-estimated how deeply embedded the Iraqi security forces were. It is a fair bet that they have made the same mistake with Iran now. And after the Iraq experience, why would any Iranian risk their lives on the say-so of a US President?

In the second Gulf war, the US naively thought that democracy would automatically follow once Saddam was gone and that the US would be hailed as liberators. But when liberators become occupiers, the mood on the ground rapidly changes.

In the lead up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, US intelligence and virtually every academic and military analyst made three fundamental errors. First, they said there would be no invasion. Second, they said that the Russians were so capable militarily that Ukraine would crumble quickly. Third, they said that Ukraine was incapable of putting up much resistance to superior Russian technology.

Again, US intelligence misread so much – in particular, the morale of troops. Russian soldiers, mostly conscripts, had no heart for the fight. They did not want to be there. An enormous amount of Russian effort has gone into, and is still going into, preventing desertion and into pushing soldiers into fighting – including by summary execution.

US intelligence did not read Ukrainian strength correctly, especially Ukrainian ingenuity in developing asymmetric warfare and the willingness of the whole nation to contribute and endure.

The tragedy in Ukraine is that because US intelligence said Ukraine would fold quickly, the US did not send arms and munitions to Ukraine, figuring what was the point in giving weapons that would only fall into Russian hands.

The hopeless misreading of Russian and Ukrainian capacity was courageously summed up by Zelenskyy’s response when the US offered to evacuate him when the invasion began. He said: “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”

If he had had that ammunition, maybe the Russians would have retreated.

But the US military and intelligence community always assumes it is right and never seems to have a Plan B in case it is not.

It might also have turned out better if Donald Trump had not been elected in 2024. He has stopped the US being serious about Ukraine and has always favoured the murderous President Vladimir Putin. One can only assume that Putin has some Kompromat or other hold over Trump. (Also, remember Trump trashed the Obama-inspired 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran which monitored Iran’s nuclear program to ensure it remained peaceful.)

Right now in Iran, the US is taking the wrong lesson from World War II. The lesson is not just that technical and economic superiority will always persevere, but that strong morale and a sense of purpose are also essential for victory – not just to defeat Germany and Japan, but to defeat German and Japanese fanaticism and revenge the “day of infamy” when Japan attacked Pearl Harbour.

It is also underestimating the capacity of the despotic Iranian regime to regroup and inflict death and economic ruin on its own people. It is naïve to think the Iranian people will rise up and take the government in the face of brutal force and without any well-organised, well-financed, and well-equipped unified opposition.

I hope I am wrong and that Trump is right so that the Iranian people can go back to the democracy they had in 1953 when the CIA and MI6 engineered a coup to overthrow Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, and reinstate Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as the absolute ruler in the hope of reversing the nationalisation of the oil industry and holding back what the US saw as the tide of communism.

The Shah’s repression in turn led to the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and the evil regime which represses and controls every element of the long-suffering people of Iran today.

But with that history it is difficult to imagine that this will not turn out into yet another catastrophic US intelligence fiasco.

It’s true that no-one but duped fanatics will miss President Ali Khamenei, but attack without lawful justification does not make it right.

It would be have been better to have an international institution administer justice with a body of law that is not subject to the whim or veto of the victors of World War II.

Rigidly enforced sanctions could have brought both Khamenei and Putin down. But because of China, India, and others the sanctions are failing.

Somehow, the world has got to get back to international law and order before we destroy ourselves.

This article first appeared in The Canberra Times and other Australian media on 3 March 2026