March will mark 20 years since the United States launched its invasion of Iraq, and with it a wave of catastrophic choices that continue to plague American foreign policy. It took a little over a month for President George W. Bush to declare victory over Saddam Hussein's forces and announce the continuation of a reconstruction mission.
But the end of the war wasn't really the end of the war. That's true in the context of Iraq, where the U.S. occupation helped exacerbate violence and instability for nearly nine years post-Saddam. It was true procedurally, too; to this day, Congress has not repealed the authorization it passed to allow the president to invade Iraq in 2003.
