But let’s keep a sense of perspective on the pace of change on all fronts. A senior adviser to the Iraqi Prime Minister says that it took former Soviet bloc countries a decade to recover before beginning substantial progress. By that token, Iraq is half-way towards the road to normality, although the physical and psychological legacies of Ba’athism and Saddam are far bigger burdens than for many former communist countries, which received considerable assistance from other European countries.

And then there is the continuing impact of American errors: too few troops, excessive de-Baathification and the clumsy disbandment of the army giving thousands of trained men from what they felt was a disenfranchised if previously dominant minority the incentive to take up arms. And plenty of these were to hand thanks to the failure to prevent looting, including the old regime’s arsenals.

I give you two signs of Iraqi ambition and promise. I stood on the 4.5 km long runway of the new Erbil International Airport being built by Turkish contractors to a British design. Once completed, it will be the fifth largest runway in the world, able to take the largest freight and passenger aircraft. It is often said that the only friends of the Kurds are the mountains into which they have often been forced to retreat for sanctuary. This airport will give this land locked region a much needed bridge to the world. Or take the proposed new Great Port of Basra which may come to rival others in the Gulf, even become the biggest container port in the world and employ up to 500,000 people.

The Iraqis are a proud people who have suffered for too long. They are anxious to retrieve control of their destiny but need help to stand on their own two feet. The burden of history and geography is huge. But geology - oil, gas, agriculture – can yet help them find a path which combines prosperity and social justice. Iraq is no longer a four letter word. Are we going to remain on the sidelines or will we now help them?