The United States invaded Iraq. We barely mark today with an anniversary, a sign that the Iraq war has lost not merely the centrality it once occupied in American political discussion but practically all of its purchase. In a manner breathtaking to behold considering the 90,000 U.S. troops who are still in Iraq — is that number even still accurate? — we simply consider the Iraq war done with; withdrawal a certainty; and continued argument useless. Some think we’re a bomb blast or two away from reconsidering that judgment. I think it’s irreversible. You can’t, in the final analysis, rekindle support for waging an exhausting war when the strategy is to end it. The historical reckoning with Iraq is yet to come.

For the Iraqis, the war is not ignorable, the circumstances of it are not escapable, and the reality of it is not optional. We should pay the Iraqis reparations, whether in the form of favored trade deals or otherwise. What we did to your country was obscene and uncivilized, a source of national and historical shame that we will have to work to overcome. Seven years too late, as a nation, we must demonstrate remorse and ask forgiveness.