A senior Foreign Office official, who saw the few papers that were written about the invasion's likely consequences, told me: "The basic assumption that turned out to be false was that Iraqis felt themselves more Iraqi than Sunni or Shia".
Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that it "eviscerates a basic assumption: that slavery in America ended with the Civil War".
"In cognitive science, we have this basic assumption that the brain is a computer," Martinez added.
Not everyone agrees with Peacemaker's basic assumption: that both Palestinians and Israelis want peace.
This has often led to a basic assumption that LGBT residents are somehow synonymous with economic growth.
"The basic assumption that people are making is that the U.S. government will never default on its debt".
Google engineers designed the system on the basic assumption that any part of the system was likely to fail.
The basic assumption that the only way to educate children is in locally run, publicly run schools has been punctured".
"In cognitive science, we have this basic assumption that the brain is a computer," Dr Martinez added.
It's our basic assumption that when you do business in an area, you have to respect local law just as you do offline.
"Their basic assumption — that Europe's economy is so much stronger than other economies — is flawed," said Thomas Mayer, chief European economist at Deutsche Bank in London.
