This week marks the 20th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, a war most Americans believe was a mistake. The anniversary has raised debate over what lessons the U.S. should have taken from the conflict — and whether we've actually learned them.
at around 300,000, although many experts believe the true number could be much higher. Those figures also don’t account for the social and political costs that continue to plague the country two decades after the initial invasion.Whenever the Iraq war returns to public conversation, it sparks a fresh round of recriminations over the mistakes that led the U.S. into such an ill-fated conflict. But the anniversary has also raised a separate debate over what lessons the U.S.
The war has also had a significant effect on U.S. politics. It remains the defining legacy of the Bush presidency, and many commentators say it helped fuel the deep distrust of American institutions that has become a dominant characteristic of the GOP in the Trump era. The public is also far less willing to support putting American troops on the ground, which has likely played a significant role in how leaders have approached conflicts in places like Libya, Syria and even Ukraine.
“The U.S. has still not fully internalized that war’s lessons. The Iraq debacle should have taught the U.S. it can never again scare itself into war based on guesses about how sinister some enemy is or will be. It should have taught Americans the damage that can be done by treating a foreign bogeyman as inherently intolerable—whether it’s Saddam Hussein or Vladimir Putin or the mullahs of Iran, a nation whose feared pursuit of nuclear weapons has vexed Washington for many years.
“In a democracy, the majority still rules. At the same time, embattled minorities need avenues—and encouragement—to register their dissent, in the hope of convincing enough of their fellow citizens that they are right. Because sometimes they are. And the Iraq War was one of those times.” — Shadi Hamid,“In no small measure, the horrors falling under the heading of Trumpism and culminating in the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, can be traced directly back to Bush’s cadre of self-deceived deceivers.
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