Democracy was going to be delivered to Libya, they said. The good guys would be propelled to power in Syria, they told us, ridding the world once and for all of the pox of Assadite authoritarianism. Afghanistan would take its place among the league of modern nations, they trilled, its backward, brutal culture of terrorism and misogyny being replaced by a shiny new nation free of the Talbian, the burqa and heroin. And Iraq? Iraq was going to be a post-Saddam paradise. Leftist laptop bombardiers assured us it would be a paragon of multiculturalism, with trade unionists to the fore. Others said it would just finally be a normal nation, a friend to the West. We can ‘cure the world’, as Tony Blair announced in 2001, perusing the globe from the dizzy perch of a new, virtuous imperialism.
Poll: 48% of Americans Say Leaving Afghanistan is a ‘Good Idea’
