Two decades ago, the worst president in modern U.S. history plunged the country into a foolish and needless war. Thousands of Americans died. Hundreds of thousands of foreigners lost their lives. Trillions of dollars were squandered. Yet few Washington policymakers have learned anything from the experience.

Indeed, some members of the blob, as the foreign policy community is indecorously known, are most worried about the American people opposing new misadventures. Journalist Natalia Antonova sees “defeatism in the words and actions” of those who oppose Washington’s once unstoppable War Party. AEI’s Hal Brands fears “the ‘no more Iraqs’ mindset.”

Washington, D.C., has long been full of people full of themselves—convinced that they saw further into the future than others, had the mandate of heaven to remake the world, and needn’t concern themselves about the human cost of their grand ambitions. The collapse of the Soviet Union unleashed an especially toxic mix of hubris and sanctimony.