It is important that the Iraq War and its origins continue to be debated. There remain hard lessons to be learned and one could conceivably make an eloquent case that the vote for the war was and continues to be a disqualifier, especially if that same ill-advised policy of regime change, embraced by the Hillary Clinton of 2002 in her role as a United States senator, was identically embraced by the Hillary Clinton of 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 in her role as America’s chief diplomat. Whether the 2016 Democratic contest is relatively short or turns out to be a protracted fight, and whether Hillary Clinton’s nomination is inevitable or not, her vote to give President Bush the authority to remove Saddam Hussein preemptively deserves another day in court.

Zane Albayati is a writer based in Washington, D.C.