dispatches

Beyond Iraq, the next issue of dispatches, examines the global consequences of a war that has gone horribly wrong. Whether the Bush Administration should have pushed ahead to invade Iraq in the setting of early 2003 is open to interpretation. Looking backward after five years, however, the picture is clear. The aftermath ranks among the greatest blunders of modern history.

Perhaps a half million Iraqis are dead as a direct result. Millions more, uprooted, must rebuild their lives. Rather than depleting terrorist ranks, it has swelled them. Countless recruits join disparate groups to seek revenge with yet more fervor. No longer dominated by a Sunni minority, Iraqi Shiites forge alliances with Iran.

Not only in the Middle East and South Asia but also in the rest of the world, the war has reordered political alliances, economic balances, and social orders. If the United States remains a nuclear-tipped superpower, its ability to lead by the more powerful means of moral suasion has been badly comprised.

Beyond Iraq looks at the stone thrown into a pond: an invasion with no plan for what would happen next. But its larger purpose is to follow the ripples from Iraq’s neighbors and the Muslim world to Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Our writers and photographers, firsthand witnesses with broad world experience, portray families who paid a price, officers who watched how things went wrong, and leaders who must sort out the consequences.

In sum, the world is now different, and dispatches examines how. Our purpose is to brief citizens whose leaders must navigate troubled waters, sensibly and safety.