I was wrong on the Iraq war - and with Iran there is a long line of great unknowns once again, writes Andrew Marr

It’s a great triumph for democracy and American arms which will bring us a more peaceful world. It’s a looming disaster which will send the region into chaos and spread recession towards all of us.

I just want to speak against self-righteousness by bringing you a confession. It’s about me and the Iraq war.

From the beginning, I was against the Iraq war - but for the wrong reasons: I thought that Saddam‘s military would be mighty and would kill too many of our own people.

I argued with ministers and labour MPs before the war and I lost friendships.

Then the war, in a military sense, like this one so far, was a triumphant success. I over-corrected and when anti-Saddam crowds were cheering in Baghdad and pulling down his statue, I lauded Tony Blair as the leader who had proved his critics wrong. Too early, too damn early.

Because then came the Civil War, the terrible loss of civilian life and the hideous growth of ISIS – put together, one of the great disasters during my lifetime.

Right from the start, the danger signals had been there – the wiser heads in the foreign office and the US state department warning that you couldn’t simply go into a country as big and divided as Iraq and turn it into a peaceful thriving democracy, Minnesota with palm trees.

I heard those messages. I even reported them. But somehow I didn’t really take them in.

I’m telling the story about how wrongly I called the Iraq war because it reminds me that ahead of us again today, there’s a long line of great unknowns.

We are at the beginning of something in Iran, many miles from the endgame, and it’s far too early to declare to perform the kind of swaggering, fist-pumping dance victory that Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary is currently enjoying.

And it’s also far too early to insist that this must all end in another Middle East disaster.

Keir Starmer has to take decisions. Again today, he’s being savagely attacked for them.

The rest of us - you, me, him down the pub - have the luxury of being able to exercise caution and self-doubt.

Let’s not pretend a certainty that is fundamentally dishonest.

Because, after all, this is still moving very fast.

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Andrew Marr is an author, journalist and presenter for LBC.

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