There were voices raised against the invasion 20 years ago, but America’s interlocking political, security and media elites—its establishment—rallied behind it
ago, President George W. Bush stood before the American people and proposed a radical intervention to head off a growing menace in one of the world’s most troubled regions. “Seldom has history offered a greater opportunity to do so much for so many,” he said in his state-of-the-union message in 2003.
Not all America’s woes can be traced to that fateful invasion, when America’s arrogance rather than its generosity—the flip sides of its idealism—became its global calling-card. The global financial meltdown later that decade rounded out the failure of the establishment. But the Iraq war propelled America down the road to Donald Trump.
Mr Trump told Americans what they had come to suspect, that all this was crap. America should have taken Iraq’s oil. Generals could be fools, and even so-called war heroes could be losers. America should use more severe forms of torture than waterboarding. China was raping America while its leaders did nothing. The press lied. The experts lied. Politicians, of course, lied all the time. The establishment was out for itself.
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