Free at last

Abstract

On the 30th of September 2006 for the first time in its history as an independent nation, Iceland was free of all foreign military forces or their representatives. A quiet and almost unnoticed ceremony took place at the Keflavik NATO base. American and Icelandic flags were lowered, folded, given to representatives of the respective countries and the small official party drove away. Quietly, with no fanfare or demonstration, or even much notice, the Keflavik base, the focal point of an issue that roiled and divided Iceland politics like one of the fire trenches that mark the country, an issue that had simmered and erupted throughout most of the Cold War, became a ghost town.