David Armitage; 19/7/08
My handy digital Bush countdown clock tells me there are 185 days left until George Bush leaves the White House. We will all have our memories of his eight years in office, but one that sticks in the mind is the moment in May 2003 when he stood on the deck of an American aircraft-carrier and announced the end of large-scale combat operations in Iraq. The notorious banner behind him read “Mission Accomplished”. “Mission: Impossible” might have been more like it. There is a better reason than Bush’s hubris to remember that moment. It marked the end of the last war fought between two sovereign states. In this case, the enemies were the United States and Saddam Hussein’s Republic of Iraq. Not long after, the new Iraqi Government regained its sovereignty and began to carry on military operations in alliance with coalition forces. Bush’s announcement was clearly not the end of the war in Iraq. But it did end formal interstate warfare, at least for the present.
See: http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/the-shape-of-wars-to-come/2008/07/18/1216163154108.html
