I said the first day we rolled into Iraq, that we had to be there for at least 20 years, or else it would quickly crumble.
In hindsight, it was better to leave Saddam in charge.
In hindsight, it was better to leave Saddam in charge.”
Correction:
I said the first day we rolled into Iraq, that we had to be there for at least 70 years, or else it would quickly crumble.
In hindsight, it was better to leave Saddam in charge.
To get Democracy to flourish in that place we would have had to outright run it for 20 years, and allowed another 50 years for at least two generations to be born under Democracy before it would have had a chance. And nobody wanted to do that - hence not much of a reason to go there in the first place. Neutering Saddam made more sense, and we were pretty close to that at the time of the invasion.
I believe the administration had some naive idea that if we got rid of Saddam, the UN and the rest of the world would finish the job. Unfortunately finishing the job still involved hard work, so expecting the UN to do it was crazy.
Yes, it was. And Mubarak and Gaddafi and Assad, too. Sure, they were a$$holes. But they kept the psychotic muzzies in line. Not only that, in their regimes churches, and yes, even synagogues, were open and relatively safe places to worship.
In all of these countries, the Christian and Jewish religious minorities have been or are being exterminated.