Tomorrow mark’s the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war; the invasion began on 20th March, 2003, and President George W Bush declared ‘victory’ on the 1st of May that year. Five long years later and British and American troops remain in Iraq and the war we were told was over is still being fought.

If you judge the war by the fate of it’s proponents then consider this… Tony Blair has left the leadership of his party, his legacy tainted; George Bush enjoys approval ratings somewhere in the region of 19%; and Hillary Clinton, who sided with the Bush administration in it’s decision to invade, is struggling to win the Democratic nomination for the Presidency.

However, there is little room for the anti-war movement to brag. Demonstrations held to mark the anniversary drew crowds of ‘thousands’ compared to the hundreds of thousands (even the police, whose estimates are usually on the conservative side, said 750,000) in the month before the invasion.

One of the bitterest legacies of the Iraq conflict is that it is not just Muslims who have been alienated from the political process, but also the majority of people who opposed the war and now feel totally unrepresented and disenfranchised. Simply, they were told their opinions were irrelevant and they have reacted as such; dropped out of politics and lost interest in the process. So nobody will be particularly relishing the ‘celebration’ of this anniversary – it will be one of those ‘parties’ where everybody is nervously examining their feet or fidgeting with their mobile phones, hoping to be saved by ANY text message.

Whether we like the fact that the invasion happened or not – and I most defiantly do not – the issue now is how, having made the mistake, we rectify it. Of course, troops need to be withdrawn, but how, and in what manner?

A timetabled withdrawal is a must. It is contended that this would ‘encourage terrorism’, but it is forgotten that a timetable would send a clear signal to Iraqi people that occupation is not going to be permanent and would undercut some support for the insurgency. Recently Reuters ran a piece which noted the keen interest in the US elections amoung the Iraqi people who are looking for it as an indicator of change:

Athil al-Nujaifi, a member of a secular, multi-ethnic political bloc in the volatile northern city of Mosul, said a Democrat victory would offer the United States ‘a new future’. “The current situation in Iraq is tied to President Bush and his inability to admit his mistake in occupying Iraq and his inability to avoid the mistakes the neo-conservatives committed,” Nujaifi said.”

One of the most startling failures of the Iraqi ‘adventure’ has been the decimation of the countries infrastructure alongside the ethnic splintering that has rent the country apart. This was borne totally of a failure of perspectives stemming from the Bush-Blair ideological fantasy land of the people of Iraq showering their ‘liberators’ tanks with flowers and coming together in a joyous Utopia. In other words it is a failure that is directly attributable to the neo-conservative way of seeing the world.

It is hard not to think that the ever-spirialling resources spent on keeping troops in Iraq would not better be spent on rebuilding that infrastructure. Such investment not only benefits the people of Iraq but it undercuts the ideological appeal of religious fundamentalism, which after all was supposed to be the main aim of this war.

Instead of making sloganeering demands for ‘Troops out now’ the anti-war movement needs to develop serious arguments around timetabled withdrawal and the diverting of the saved resources into projects that actually improve the lives of the Iraqi people. If it were to take this route, then it might find itself beginning to get back some of the purchase it had. However, the Liberal Democrats as a parliamentary party are in a ideal place to start asking these questions, and applying pressure to the government.

Above all this anniversary should be a time of sombre reflection across the Western world; reflection on the fact that ‘might is not always right’. It should also be a reflection on how much has been lost for so little gain, both in terms of security within our own borders and in terms of making the world a better and safer place. The ‘war on terror’ was always a flawed concept; an ideological cover for the pursuance of agendas other than those of security and self-defence. It will be invoked again to justify more questionable policies and possibly more wars.

It is up to progressives to say that we can have security without these adventures; that politicians who pray on people’s fear do not have the best interests of the people at heart; and that the best people to spread democracy are the people themselves who live under the yoke of dictatorship, not outside powers who play with nations as if they were pieces on a chess board.

* Darrell Goodliffe is an applicant party member from Peterborough.