When Bloggingheads asked Eli Lake and me to film a diavlog yesterday, I figured that Maliki’s visit to Washington provided a good opportunity to talk about Iraq, something I resolved yesterday morning to once again cover in depth. Eli and I talked it over and decided that we should each discuss what we got wrong about Iraq and why we got it wrong. I give this more thought than my blogging indicates. My friend Megan McArdle occasionally runs a feature where she reflects on intellectual mistakes she made, and I have a lot of respect for such self-reflection. In a business that never punishes intellectual mistakes and often creates active disincentives to remedying ignorance — when was the last time you saw someone admit on a cable news show that s/he doesn’t know something? — it’s important we hold ourselves to high standards.

So here’s a summary — like nine minutes of it — of what I think I’ve gotten wrong about Iraq over the years, and why. In retrospect, I don’t do enough to address the why, and if you don’t think it’s too navelgaze-y, I’ll elaborate in the coming days.