Blair, Iraq, and the folly of boomer exceptionalism

Mr. Blair's speech was shaped by the American-led interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo, and it overflowed with baby boomer confidence about the capacity of good intentions to set the world right. His vision was missing the astringent understanding of the fallibility of both men and nations that anchored the foreign policy thinking of Cold War-era realists like Reinhold Niebuhr, the brilliant American theologian. Iraq exposed that blind spot in Mr. Blair. The war has demonstrated again, in ways Mr. Niebuhr might have anticipated, that there are limits to our ability to shape other societies or even to fully anticipate the consequences of our actions. "Blair Knew Better On Iraq" Baltimore Sun