The Cambridge Society of Australia (Victoria) welcomes alumni and guests for lunch with Richard Iron CMG OBE at The Savage Club.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq is probably the greatest strategic mistake, so far, of the 21st Century. It has destabilised the entire Middle East by exacerbating the Shia-Sunni divide, strengthening Sunni Islamist radicalism, spawning ISIS and encouraging the growth of proxy conflicts in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere.

Richard Iron served in the British Army for 37 years, taking his undergraduate degree at Trinity Hall. He led a joint US/UK planning team for the early stages of the war; wrote the British Army’s analysis of the invasion; was senior mentor to the Iraqi commander in Basra that fought the Shia militias in 2008; and led the US security mission in Iraq following the withdrawal of most of its troops in 2011. He was subsequently Defence Fellow at the University of Oxford and now lives in Mount Macedon.