There is conflict taking place but it is not between Iraq and the West, and there is no drive to war from Iraq. It is amazing that Iraq and Hussein could be compared to Nazi Germany and Hitler or even the Soviet Union and Kruschchev. Iraq is (now) a stone age country led by a party which has no grand vision, and on the scale of expansionism couldn't hold a candle to Nazi Germany or the post-War USSR. (A scud missile is about equivalent to a V2, only 60 years more 'modern'.)

The second Gulf War was about establishing the pecking order in the 'New World Order', and the third will be about re-establishing US authority against a moderately resurgent Europe, and the new kid on the block, China. It took two World Wars before the US could take the baton of world leadership from Britain, and given its political and cultural hegemony I doubt the US will be forced to cede this baton in the next 25 years, so I don't believe at that point there will be much to reflect on.

However it will be interesting to reflect on what I believe will be seen as one of the most ridiculous and pathetic episodes of political history. In this period unprincipled Western countries spent over a decade picking on a regime which they had supported politically and militarily for the previous 20 years (remember the first Gulf War against Iran?), which launched a massive 'liberation' campaign after a relatively minor incursion into territory that was historically Iraqi (divided only a British 'line in the sand'), and spent the next 12 years periodically bombing the country to protect 'Marsh Arabs and Kurds', people with whom they had and have no sympathy. (Turkey, a Nato member, regularly persecutes Kurds within its borders.)

But pointing up such hypocrisy is a pointless activity in a post-political age. More interesting will be to see what kind of liberated and progressive society the West creates in Iraq over the next 25 years. Will it be as inspiring as the modern Kuwaiti democracy, or the new egalitarian Afghanistan? How will Western countries that have forgotten their founding principles and themselves are scared of political and social progress create a vibrant new society in Iraq? Maybe in 25 years we will have learned that our current leaders were unfit to govern, and we will no longer tolerate their government.

(Apolgies for the length of this post. If I had had more time it would have been shorter. Nico Macdonald