It’s common to talk about the September 11 attacks using the word “tragedy.” What people are usually referring to is the thousands of innocent lives lost that day. They’re right, of course. What’s forgotten is the opportunity that slipped away soon after, leading to yet more tragedy.

The events of twenty years ago could have been a chance for Americans to realize what kind of impact the foreign policies pursued in their name have had on millions of ordinary people around the world, and to change course before more blood was spilled. Of course, that’s not quite how it went.

For decades, Americans had been fed a narrative of their country as the world’s superman: an implacably decent good guy standing up for truth and justice, crushing the world’s villains along the way. A long list of bad things had happened to the American people in the preceding decades, but outsiders who wanted to do them harm attacking on home soil? That hadn’t happened since World War II — the event from which that story was born in the first place.