White Hot Manifesto in a Grey-Shaded World

More than a year after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by U.S. forces, the war remains the subject of fierce controversy. Leaders who supported it most strongly and those who opposed it most vehemently find themselves embattled at home and baffled abroad. The presidential campaign in the United States coincides with a growing domestic debate about the motives for war, the intelligence that was shared with the public, the management of the “post-war” transition in Iraq and the prospects for democracy in the Middle East. The opening round in the choosing of a U.S. president—the caucuses in Iowa—found eerie echoes in the proposal for caucuses in Iraq’s selection of a new government. Across the ocean in Paris, the chattering classes produced a spate of angry denunciations of the French opposition to war and bemoaned the sacrifice of scarce French political capital. The war cracked open the fault lines of longstanding alliances and pushed to the forefront deep debates about...