OIF Strategic Decisionmaking

[Pete]

An attempt to replicate it today by, say, contending that the only option toward Iran is intervention or a nuclear-armed Iran invading neighboring states, would not be taken seriously.

The casus belli for the Iraq War drove another nail into the coffin of the "Lessons of Munich," the idea that it is better to fight a small war now rather than a larger one later. Similarly, public confidence in intelligence gathering and analysis is considerably reduced; the aerial photography that showed Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962 would probably not arouse the same response today that it did nearly 50 years ago.