Thinking in simple terms, I felt at the time we should have turned left to finish off Syria, then right to dismanntle Iran.
We had pretty much our whole army in the Middle East. Rather than use it, Bush literally put our tanks in garages in Iraq.
Our enemies were cowering, but when they realized Bush was going no further, they began picking pff our troops in Iraq.
The Iranians sure seem to have our presidents' numbers.