[Cronos]

Gulf WarI was the stupidest thing we have ever done -- Saddam was a secular dictator -- an evil one, but secular still

And his two enemies were the jihadis/Saudi-sponsored-Wahabbis and the Iranis (he called them "Those Persian flies that must be swatted")

Saddam thought of himself as a latter-day Ashurbanipal who would conquer Iran and rule over the Arabs

The Saudis hated him

If we had let Saddam take Kuwait, then he would have threatened the Saudis, preventing them spending money on arming the Taliban and AlQaeda and getting them to give him money to fight Iran

And yes, he would have restarted the war with Iran, only with a lot more money and he would have killed a lot more Shia fanatics

Instead, by posting troops in Saudia we gave AlQ the pretext (infidels on the "holy land" of Saudia) and the Saudis gave money to set up Wahabbi schools etc...

Gulf War I led to GW II, Afghanistan, 9/11, the radicalization of Pakistan, etc. etc.

[BlackVeil]

This is true, and Iran has become a lot bolder, since they no longer have Sadaam sitting there, just over the fence.