the former dictator in Iraq would not agree
History, at least American history, isn't going to consider what some tinhorn dictator whose country was imploding thinks. What it will consider is why for 16 years, the President of the United States did not exercise more authority in defeating our enemies. Why did they wait 14 years to rally the world around sanctions for NK and Iran? You can play out the scenarios many different ways, but at the end of this 14-year stretch, we're less safe from these two countries than we were at the beginning. And we will be substantially pulling out of Iraq in 12 months, there's no question about that, so that threat isn't going away either.