Exactly...if only Bush-43 had NOT attacked Iraq, we would have no ISIS, Sadddam and sons would be keeping all radical Muslims where they belong, in prisons doing hard labor. Iran would be still tangled with Iraq and would not become a nuclear power. And there would be no mass invasion by displaced people seeking sanctuary in Europe and Obama would not have approved arrival of hundred thousand refugees from middle-east.
Best of all we would be $6 Trillion ahead in US Treasury and all those brave American soldiers killed in Iraq, Syria, Libya would still be alive.
IMHO the invasion of Iraq by Bush-43 will go down in history as the biggest foreign policy blunder ever.
Yep, and all because Saddam had plotted against his old man. Iraq was a personal vendetta by W played out on the world stage. The quagmire of all quagmires, with no end in sight.
At least the anthrax postage stopped.
Saudis loves radical Islam and hates Saddam. Bushes loves Saudi. Between Saudis, Bushes, radical islam and Saddam the latter had no chance.
If we left the dictators alone we would have a much more peaceful world.
> “Exactly...if only Bush-43 had NOT attacked Iraq...”
Though I can’t say I’ve been at all fond of Bush in recent years — or of his recent speech — he himself didn’t attack Iraq (Bush could have done nothing without the support of others). Neither did the United States “attack” Iraq.
Iraq didn’t comply with the inspection provisions that produced a ceasefire in the first Iraq war, which Saddam started. Iraq was required not just to stop development of WMDs but to account for materials already produced, so that their destruction could be confirmed. Saddam didn’t do so, foolishly leaving doubt about whether he still had them — apparently on purpose to keep up his status in the region, intimidate Iran, or just out of machismo. He probably thought that pacifists and isolationists in this country would keep it from ever overthrowing him.
He didn’t expect to be pulled out of a hole, tried, and executed. Unfortunately that salutary example that might have served as a deterrent to other enemies of the United States didn’t have the positive deterrent effect it might have because of dissension in the United States.
The invasion of Iraq was not an “attack” on Iraq but a resumption of the war that Saddam was dumb enough to start by invading Kuwait (at that time too he foolishly underestimated American intentions to oppose him — he was a reckless fool, with far more power than reckless fools should ever have).
The Iraqi nuclear scientists who testified that Iraq suspended development of nuclear weapons when inspections were instituted — and apparently they did — also said they expected development to be resumed when the inspections ended. Saddam was a mass murderer — who used WMDs against the Kurds, the least objectionable group in the country from an American point of view — and if he’d had his way, he’d have added another malevolent nuclear power to the world. He deserved to be overthrown. The fact that others subsequently screwed things up doesn’t change that.
> “And there would be no mass invasion by displaced people seeking sanctuary in Europe and Obama would not have approved arrival of hundred thousand refugees from middle-east.”
If countries accept masses of unvetted illegal immigrants (who are often hostile to the cultures of the United States and Europe), that’s the mistake of the current governments that accept them.
We’re still accepting more than we should. I’m not saying that we should allow refugees who are really at great risk to be slaughtered (the true refugees). I think either Muslim countries should be pressured to accept the Muslims, or we should try to establish relatively safe areas in their home countries where they can go (preferably by using air power against anyone who threatens them).
These are hassles, I agree. I too prefer less engagement overseas whenever it’s prudent. If you think that isolationism will work when a large part of the world hates the United States, though, and when nuclear weapons are becoming more and more accessible, I think you’re sadly mistaken.
there are no blunders...everything is done for a reason....