In emergency medicine, -the golden hour- is the first hour after injury during which treatment greatly increases survivability. In post-conflict transition terminology, it is the first year after hostilities end. Without steadily improving conditions then, popular support declines and chances for economic, political, and social transformation begin to evaporate. James Stephenson believes we have lost Iraq's golden hour. A veteran of postconflict reconstruction on three continents, he ran the Iraq mission of the Agency for International Development in 2004-05 with more than a thousand...