Two decades after invasion of Iraq, shadow of war still looms large Twenty years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, the shadow of the war still looms large. As well as the destabilisation of Iraq and the wider region, the conflict also created a power vacuum that enabled the rise of the Islamic State group. In this special edition, we speak to Samuel Helfont, assistant professor of strategy and policy at the Naval War College programme at the California-based Naval Postgraduate School and the author of several books on Iraq.