Had the Bush administration kept its promise to hand over power quickly to an elected Iraqi government, there is every chance that the resistance would have remained small and containable, rather than becoming a countrywide rebellion. But keeping that promise would have meant sacrificing the economic agenda behind the war, something that was never going to happen—and that is why the violent repercussions of America’s denial of democracy in Iraq must also be counted as a form of ideological blowback.
