taliban winning in afghanistan, page-8

"which at least had united nations approval."

I think you will find that the UN did not approve the invasion

In March 2003 the US government announced that "diplomacy has failed" and that it would proceed with a "coalition of the willing" to rid Iraq of its alleged weapons of mass destruction. The 2003 Iraq war officially started a few days later.

Prior to this decision, there had been a good deal of diplomacy and debate amongst the members of the UN Security Council over how to deal with Iraq. This article examines the positions of these states as they changed over the period 2002-2003.

Prior to 2002, the UN Security Council had passed sixteen resolutions on Iraq. In 2002, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1441 on Iraq unanimously. [1] In 2003, the US, UK, and Spanish governments proposed another resolution on Iraq, which they called the "eighteenth resolution" and others called the "second resolution". This proposed resolution was subsequently withdrawn because not enough countries would have supported it, making it a political mistake for its sponsors.

On September 16, 2004 Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, speaking on the invasion, said, "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter. From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal."