The Iraq War's Real Victims? Laurie Penny and the Narcissistic Left

Don’t take my word for it. Ask the redoubtable Ms Penny herself. Contemplating the “lesson” of the anti-war protests a decade ago, she writes:

Tony Blair’s decision to take Britain into the Americans’ war in Iraq was an immediate, material calamity for millions of people in the Middle East. I’m writing here, though, about the effect of that decision on the generation in the west who were children then and are adults now. For us, the sense of betrayal was life-changing. We had thought that millions of people making their voices heard would be enough and we were wrong.

Poor lambs. Of course there were millions of people around the world – including many in Britain – who would have been disappointed if Saddam Hussein had been permitted to remain in power. Some of them might even have thought this an act of unpardonable betrayal. It is impossible, however, to think they would have whined about it in quite this ghastly fashion.