These lessons are organized into three categories first are the whys iraq has been foremost a war of first resort it was launched a year after our first national security doctrine of the new century replaced one based on avoiding war unless absolutely necessary declaring that the old doctrine actually made war more likely. Lessons from iraq avoiding the next war the iraq war disaster could actually have an upside of sorts it should put quite a few policies and practices permanently off limits heres a list to argue about by william d hartung miriam pemberton may 5 2008. The idea of assembling lessons as tools for avoiding the next war is less of a stretch than it seems given the group of writers represented here they include a nobel prize winning economist the former chief un weapons inspector and an iraqi american whose weekly conversations with his relatives have given him a grim education on what living through a war to spread democracy is like on the ground. The idea of assembling lessons as tools for avoiding the next war is less of a stretch than it seems given the group of writers represented here they include a nobel prize winning economist the. The idea of assembling lessons as tools for avoiding the next war is less of a stretch than it seems given the group of writers represented here they include a nobel prize winning economist the former chief un weapons inspector and an iraqi american whose weekly conversations with his relatives have given him a grim education on what