After a decade of combat, casualties, massive displacement, persisting violence, enhanced sectarian tension and violence between Shi’ias and Sunnis, periodic suicide bombings, and autocratic governance, a negative assessment of the Iraq War as a strategic move by the United States, United Kingdom, and a few of their secondary allies, including Japan, seems unavoidable. Not only the regionally destabilizing outcome, including the blowback effect of perversely adding weight to Iran's overall diplomatic influence, but the reputational costs in the Middle East associated with an imprudent, destructive, and failed military intervention make the Iraq War the worst American foreign policy disaster since its defeat in Vietnam in the 1970s. Such geopolitical accounting does not even consider the damage to the United Nations and international law arising from an aggressive use of force in flagrant violation of the UN Charter, embarked upon without any legitimating authorization as to the use of force by the Security Council. The UN hurt its image when it failed to reinforce its refusal to grant authorization to the United States and its coalition. This was compounded by the fact that the UN lent support to the unlawful American-led occupation that followed. In other words, not only was the Iraq War a disaster from the perspective of American and British foreign policy and the peace and stability of the Middle East region, but it was also a serious setback for international law, the UN, and world order.