Ten years ago, the United States invaded Iraq. To be completely accurate, the U.S. led an international coalition to invade Iraq, but the moving force behind that decision and the overwhelming bulk of the forces came from Washington D.C.
Operation Iraqi Freedom was a success if success is defined excruciatingly narrowly as the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. By every other standard, it was a failure.
Yet — or perhaps because of that — this outcome remains only an afterthought for governments around the world, and nowhere more so than in the U.S.