Exporting Democracy: What Have We Learned from Iraq?

Even those, like myself, who opposed the Iraq War from the start on moral, legal, and strategic grounds cannot rejoice at whatever confirmation of our judgment comes from the scene of carnage, political turpitude, and human misery presented by contemporary Iraq. The world is a more dangerous place than at any time after September 11, 2001; the Middle East is perched on a precipice; and the spectacle of a superpower, mightier then ever in military terms, but increasingly losing its legitimacy, prompts anxious analogies to doomed empires of the past.