"...all of the immense costs of that ill-fated expedition—the thousands of lost American lives, the greater numbers of broken bodies, the trillions in long-term monetary costs, and all the rest—are sunk costs. There is no way to get them back. There is thus no basis for investing still more in Iraq in a feckless effort somehow to gain redemption for one of the biggest and costliest mistakes in American history. Launching the Iraq War was a blunder; accept that and get over it. The psychological urge is strong to double down on losses with the idea that those who died shall not have died in vain. But psychological urges do not make good policy."