Mission accomplished? The 2003 boast that haunts today's Iran conflict

 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1e9yy84we8o

Three weeks on from the statue coming down, America's President, George W Bush, stood aboard a US aircraft carrier, anchored off the Californian coast, behind a banner saying "Mission Accomplished". Except it was anything but.

Iraq and Iran are very different countries but can lessons be learnt? So far there is little sign of a coherent plan for what the US wants to bring about or what kind of future it envisages for the country. This time, the improvisation seems to be a deliberate strategy as it leaves President Trump with different options for what he can declare as victory before moving on, creating his own "Mission Accomplished" moment.

But this time round in the US, there has been no attempt to publicly resolve the sometimes contradictory desires to take action. In fact, US President Donald Trump has himself seemed to veer between them depending on which day he is talking and who to.

Nor has there been any attempt to sell the war to the American public – a process which unfolded over months with Iraq. And nor has there been any attempt to seek international legitimacy through the UN. Back in 2003, there was endless discussion of which states might back action.

Iraq is now in a much better state than it was in the immediate aftermath and many are glad to see Saddam Hussein gone. But democracy did not spread through the Middle East in the aftermath as some had claimed it would. Instead, one of the biggest winners of the invasion would be Iran whose main adversary was removed, allowing it to extend its influence into Iraq and beyond in the years after the war. And it would increase the terrorist threat within the UK and the broader West. Wars do not always have the outcomes people expect or want.