The Washington Post offers a detailed look into the many obstacles to foreign investment in Iraq (”US Firms Eager to Sell in Iraq“). The continuing war is the main one. There are others for which the US is directly responsible: “Ports and airports are still closed to civilian traffic, and passport restrictions on U.S. citizens remain in place.”
As for the war itself, Lew asks whether US citizens can be patriotic while still sympathizing with the desire of the Iraqi people to kick out the occupying power. “The US policy of coercion and occupation failed. As British patriots [in 1776] saw the error of their government’s ways, so too must we – for the sake of our troops, and for the sake of liberty itself.”
Meanwhile, news that the US went to war based on a lie has gone mainstream.
