Guess I'm just 'old school' when it comes to that topic. Thought Bush became infected with ridiculous libtard ideas when he started chastising people with " who says Arabs can't handle democracy' or somesuch nonsense when the country was obviously strongly religiously divided and would never have remained intact without a strongman of some sort.
In the old days conservatives understood these basics and would have just went to the second in command and said hey you going to ball with us or not until they found a willing ally, then quickly install him. Sorry but breaking up the military and other things that his administration did was the height of folly and something I can only associate with a liberal influence within his administration - a real conservative would have never done something so stupid. No offense just being real about it.
I believe there are good arguments to be made for your case.
I thought there where four main screw-ups beyond the grinding down during the first four years or so in the nation.
They corrected the problems and things did move along smoothly. Had a better president been serving after Bush, Iraq wouldn’t be the problem it is now. Lets let go of that, because I’m pretty sure I know where you stand on that. Let me mention my four things.
1. DO NOT bring a guy in that spent 15 years in Iran to rule. Iran was the enemy of Iraq. It made no sense to me to bring a guy in that was more or less on working terms with Iran.
2. Do not allow Iran to train, arm, and send in terrorists with impunity. Give them an ultimatum, and then make it cost them.
3. Set up a process with the new government that sees our cost of the war reimbursed. At the same time have them provide funds to improve Iraq’s infrastructure.
We should be a good $3 to $5 trillion less in debt today.
4. Stop the transfers of weapons from Iran to Hezbollah through Iraq.
5. Get tough with Iran, and stop the nuclear weapon’s program in it’s infancy.
Don’t make any bones about it. Just do it.
Then you send a message to the Ayatollahs, “You guys mess with nukes again, and your top 100 clerics will wake up dead.
If Iraq is stable, is a decent regional player, and it’s citizens are relatively happy, it’s hard to argue it wasn’t a win/win.
Even with it’s problems right now, Iraq is better than it was.
It could be salvage rather easily. Obama refuses.
Our policies can’t be influenced by whether we’re going to have a traitor at the top or not.