Iraq.
What a stark reminder of how short the road is between heresy and received wisdom.
Even in the mainstream press, today the majority view is that the intervention in Iraq was a barely veiled disaster.
In excess of 100,000 civilian casualties, 4486 American soldiers dead, 32, 226 wounded, and over a trillion dollars spent. The statistics are mind numbing.
And all for what?
With the exception of a recent spate of stories concerning the US rethinking its distinctly white elephantine, imperial embassy in Bagdhad’s not-s0-green zone, memories of the painful episode in Iraq are receding fast. Although images of Shock and Awe, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and Fallujah occasionally return, spectre-like, to haunt the popular conscience, it is clear that less than a decade after the invasion began, most people prefer forgetting to remembrance.