As the United States lowers its flag in Iraq, President Obama is entitled to bask in the glory of an election promise honoured and a military mission accomplished. To have brought home tens of thousands of troops in time for Christmas, dismantled all the infrastructure, and departed without a hint of the panicked humiliation of Saigon is an achievement that, alone, should speed Barack Obama to a second term.
There is also a corollary to this success. To the many people in the US and around the world who opposed the Iraq war, it will only underline the criminal folly of the invasion mounted by George Bush almost nine years ago. A war of choice – grounded in false evidence, crassly mismanaged, and scandalously wasteful of human life – stands as the epitaph to an abysmally failed presidency.
Look ahead another five, 10, perhaps 20 years, however, and it is worth asking whether this sweeping judgement will endure; whether history's verdict on the Iraq war will be the same as it is today; whether that war – good or bad – will remain the touchstone for the Bush presidency, and whether the image of George Bush will still be that of the bumbling ignoramus who claimed "mission accomplished" almost before the worst of the fighting had begun.
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