Nearly five years down the line and troops are still in Iraq. There were no weapons of mass destruction, and the Ba’athist regime has been wiped out. The idea that Iraq provided a safe haven for al-Qaeda also proved unfounded, though it may have become a self-fulfilling prophecy. What can it mean now to ‘see it through’?
Was there ever any moral substance to the invasion of Iraq? Or was it never really anything more than a neocon adventure? Was the project driven by American national self-interest, or was it a desperate attempt on the part of crisis-ridden political elites to inject some moral purpose into vacuous national politics? How does the experience of Iraq play into the War on Terror at home? Will the experience of Iraq put an end to Western military interventions, neocon or otherwise, or can we expect more in the future?
 | Brendan O'Neill editor, spiked; columnist, Big Issue; contributor, Spectator; author, A Duty to Offend: Selected Essays |
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 | Professor Bill Durodié head of department and chair of international relations, University of Bath |
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 | Dr Chris Bickerton associate professor of international relations, Sciences Po, Paris; author, European Integration: from nation states to member states; co-editor, The Current Moment |
| Dr Maria Grasso lecturer in politics and quantitative methods, Department of Politics, University of Sheffield; author: Generations, Political Participation and Social Change in Western Europe | |
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 | recommended by spiked |
