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Is James Bond Responsible for the Iraq War?How the Middle East really got shaken and stirred.

By Richard CohenPosted Friday, Dec. 1, 2006, at 5:54 PM ET

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Dana Stevens trawled Daniel Craig's pre-Bond oeuvre. Justin Shubow explained whether British agents really have a license to kill. Bryan Curtis compared Casino Royale the movie to Casino Royale the book. Chris Suellentrop called Tony Blair "Bush's ambassador to America." Matthew Wall surveyed the United States' history of faulty intelligence. Fred Kaplan examined the contents of the Downing Street Memo. Back in 2003, Jack Shafer wondered who forged the documents that duped the United States into going to war.

It took the debacle in Iraq to make a mockery of Bond and all he represented. Maybe that's why the new Bond, played convincingly by Daniel Craig, is a more muted fellow. He's solid and tough, constructed of cue balls, but hardly invincible and by and large not having a very good time of it. This is a Bond of our times, one who could not come up with the WMD, appropriately humbled and working for an outfit that did no better than the CIA at assessing Saddam's arsenal or intentions. We now know Bond to be as dense as Felix Leighter, but so ingrained—still—is the impeccable image of British intelligence that it's hard to envision 007 standing before M and saying of WMD in Iraq that it is, sir, a "slam dunk."

I hope he winked.