On the 2020 campaign trail, opposition toward the Iraq war has become a litmus test of moral stature. Witness Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (who “never believed what Dick Cheney and George W. Bush said about Iraq”) signaling her virtue and shaming former Vice President Joe Biden (and President Trump), who supported it. And Trump denies he was ever for it.
The common, underlying assumption is that not only the rise of ISIS, but so much of the Mideast’s chaos is ultimately rooted in the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. The Iraq war was a debacle that sacrificed thousands of American lives and sowed chaos, but is it fundamental to understanding and responding to threats emanating from the Middle East?
The just-published 
