Mark Steyn responds to Niall Ferguson's assertion that commanders in the field in Iraq do not know the parallel between the Iraq of today and the Iraq of 1920: “Professor Ferguson's thesis is that the "ignoramus" Yanks are so hung up on theories of American exceptionalism that they decline to learn from the British experience. This accusation might more usefully be bandied closer to home, where London's governing class has, in little more than a generation, cut loose its imperial inheritance. If one were to pursue the parallel further, one might argue that the British Establishment is so hung up on theories of European exceptionalism it's shrugged off its own history.”
He goes on to answer that age old question of why Hawaii is an American state and not a colony.
