Bush the elder stopped the Gulf War short of Baghdad and left Saddam in power. What if we had done the same after 9/11?
Democracy in the Middle East seems sadly un-importable.
I don’t fault George W. Bush. We had to react after 9/11. Perhaps the USSR model of installing puppet regimes like Ceausescu and Honecker might have been the better option.
Some say the Shah of Iran was an American puppet, and that worked till Carter abandoned him.
Kill or send Saddam’s sons to Gitmo (to let him know we mean business), and prop up Saddam to keep the factions in line and pay him for his troubles. But never let him forget he’s just a puppet. And just keep the oil flowing.
“I don’t fault George W. Bush. We had to react after 9/11.”
That would be fine, if Iraq had ANYTHING to do with 9/11. It was (undeclared) war under false pretenses, and those who engineered it are war criminals.