Mission Accomplished?

By David K. Shipler

The true results of the two wars ending in Iraq and Libya are likely to be long in coming. The death of Col. Muammar Qaddafi does not close the book on Libya, and the withdrawal of the last U.S. troops in December is certainly not the last chapter in Iraq. The only reliable prediction is that whatever seems obvious today will eventually prove incomplete or incorrect. Especially in the Middle East, wars usually fool the hasty pundits and reward the patient historians.