The Shah of Iran was, Saddam Hussein most certainly was NOT.
Saddam's red-headed general al Dhouri was the guy who cultivated islamic extremists on behalf of the regime, bringing them in and directing Saddam to act to appeal to them, including adopting shariah law...before 9/11.
The regime funded and armed Mullah Krekar's Ansar group as a means of attacking the Kurds in the north. Ansar's group was later absorbed by Jordanian terrorist Zarqawi's organization. According to regime documents from the Harmony database, the regime had a relationship with islamic extremists based in London.
Stupid Jimmy Carter knocked off the Shah.
Carter's stupidity did undermine the Shah, but he was not the one who ultimately did the toppling. That honor goes to the USSR and to Saddam Hussein who supported the communists who joined with islamists to overthrow him.
Then stupid George Bush II knocked off Saddam.
Nothing wrong with that- Saddam Hussein was harboring Abu Nidal and his terrorist group; Saddam was also harboring the guy behind the cell that bombed the World Trade Center in 1993. And, Saddam was harboring both of the future cofounders of ISIS - Zarqawi and his end-times islamicist General al Dhouri. Zarqawi had at least two cells in Iraq before the US led invasion, one based directly in Baghdad that consisted mostly of Egyptians... the other near the border with Iran in the north that was associated with the European network of al Qaeda that operated out of Milan...the same bunch, as I recall, that was recorded by Italy joking before 9/11 about getting airliner parts as souvenirs...and the same bunch which was harbored by Syria as Syria [supported no doubt by allies Russia and Iran] attempted to keep the insurgency in Iraq alive in advance of the surge by importing recruits from Europe. Saddam was also funding Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines at the time they were having a field day abducting and decapitating tourists there, including Americans.
So now we have ISIS.
ISIS was there all along, just under another name. It was driven out in the Anbar awakening, only to return because the Obama admin practically invited them back in by withdrawing our troops prematurely.
And now we have Islamic extremism worldwide.
We've had islamic and arabic extremism worldwide since 1979. Nicaraguan Sandinsta terrorists and the PLO even hijacked an airliner together. Cuba trained Libyan, Algerian and Palestinian terrorists for years and years [in addition to the nonislamic IRA] and the Russians imported islamic and assorted revolutionaries for training at their Patrice Lumumba U for ages.
The only question left is who did more damage, Carter or Bush II? I vote for Bush II, without any hesitation. Bush II did more than just remove an obstacle to the caliphate. He got a lot of people killed in the process.
Strange that you don't mention Clinton or Obama, the former for his inaction against rising terrorism such as the 1998 US embassy bombings ...and cowardice in Somalia... which bin Laden cited - along with Reagan's withdrawal from Lebanon - as the proof that terrorism works and the inspiration for the 9/11 attacks. Obama is singularly responsible for the greatest number of civilian casualties by opening the way for ISIS to swarm out of Syria into Iraq acquire and hold the territory and resources to not just sustain a local fight but also to expand into other continents.
I will now retreat to my underground bunker
Good idea.
Indeed, so many really believe what they read in the popular press/carefully prepared govt reports as “truth”/
For those of us who were there, well, we were there...