I get it. In your mind, it was our fault. Blame America first. After all, we were not paying tribute money to the Assad family. And seriously, how is it our blow back? We didn’t create this army to subvert Iraq. Assad did. We didn’t transport them to Syria and onto Iraq to attack and kill Americans. Assad did. I know it’s hard to see it this way, but Assad and Iran killed Americans in Iraq to thwart our efforts there. So you can drop the Great Satan theory that everything is our fault.
America wasn't to blame. The incompetents chosen by Bush were. Bush wasn't merely incompetent in choosing Karzai and Maliki - he was incompetent in choosing the people who executed his policy as well as figuring out what policy to implement. The results are visible for all to see. Don't get me wrong - Bush is a smart, analytical guy. He was just a lousy decision maker. At every critical juncture, he made the wrong decision. America's only mistake was choosing him for president. Not that Gore, Kerry or McCain would have been any better, of course. We chose the least of the evils, and we got bit, anyway. Then thanks to Bush's incompetence, we got rewarded with 8 years of Obama, who's hyper-competent - at giving us Carter-era malaise.
Whether you call a several hundred million dollar stipend for Assad foreign aid or tribute, the reality is that the lack of an Iraqi insurgency would have saved us hundreds of billions of dollars. We hand out roughly the same amount of money to Pakistan, and they backed the Taliban who sheltered al Qaeda which perpetrated 9/11. Sometimes it's just less trouble to pay the ankle-biters. Heck, what do you call NATO other than decades of tribute involving trillions of dollars in military expenditures gifted to Europe to keep the Russians at bay?