"Saddam was coming to get us with his WMDs." "Mushroom clouds were going to start appearing over U.S. cities." "The troops in Iraq are defending our freedoms." The troops are bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq." "Occupation Iraqi Freedom is going to produce a paradise of freedom and prosperity."

And then every once in a while a small dose of reality about Iraq creeps into the mainstream media, which is what happened in the July 15, 2017, issue of the New York Times.

The Times' article pointed out what we here at FFF have been saying about Iraq for the past 15 years: that the winner of the U.S-Iraq War in 2003 was … Iran! Yes, Iran, the country that the U.S. government ranks among the top of its official-enemies list.

The title of the article says it all: "Iran Dominates in Iraq After U.S. "Handed the Country Over."

Of course, that title implies that if the U.S. government had not exited Iraq in 2011, Iran would not be "dominating in Iraq." That's ridiculous. Iran has been dominating in Iraq ever since the U.S. ouster of the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003.