I am right about this, Reagan was no Clinton.
In the face of 911, with no Soviet Union to interfere, Reagan would have taken down Hussein, and created an American foothold in the the Arab/Muslim world.
One foot on Shiite territory, another foot on Sunni territory, and presumably a third foot on Kurdish territory.
Not much of a foothold if you ask me.
If we wanted to establish a foothold in the Arab/Muslim world it would have "made more sense" to invade Iran, but since I believe that invading Iraq was complete and utter nonsense, it wouldn't take much to make more sense than that.
Even one of Lady Gaga's performances makes more sense to me than the invasion of Iraq.
We’ll put it this way. I don’t believe the Iraqi war would have been necessary under Reagan. No way would Saddam have risked crossing Reagan and incurring Old Testament retribution. If he had, he’d have been dead back in ‘91. Game over.
I also don’t think 9/11 happens under Reagan. Bin Laden would have been taken out cleanly and surgically long before then. If by some freak, Bin Laden weren’t taken out and 9/11 had still happened, Afghanistan would have been bombed from the bronze age back into the stone age, and the conflict would have been over in a matter of 2-3 years. I also believe the UAE would have suffered some serious repercussions for their role in the affair.
JMO of course, but Reagan would not have pussyfooted around the way his successors have.