Odium of the Mesopotamia Entanglement

摘要

During the Cairo Conference in March 1921, Winston Churchill, then Colonial Secretary, said 'I feel some misgivings about the political consequences to myself of taking on my shoulders the burden and odium of the Mesopotamia entanglement.' Eighty-odd years later, the United States is committed to regime change in Baghdad and is now looking into same the Pandora's Box of Iraq that Churchill once saw. As the United States starts to think about the challenges of rebuilding a post-Saddam Iraq, it is worth reconsidering Churchill's insight and the circumstances of his analysis.