Recommended: Did Iraq Really Ruin the U.S.?

I recommend Victor David Hanson's recent essay Did Iraq Really Ruin the U.S.? Hanson's essays are valuable because, whether in the end one agrees with him or not, they do tend to give an alternative perspective on the world to the perspective offered by the media and the political spin doctors. Since Hanson is a historian, he tends to think within a longer-term framework than the more typical day-to-day "reactive" media.