“the Ron Paul position as he articulates it”
This is your whitewashing of Ron Paul’s insane conspiratorial rhetoric. Ron Paul runs around spouting anti-American war-for-oil conspiracy theories, saying the U.S. forces ‘will not permit any of the three regions of Iraq to govern themselves’, while claiming that Operation Iraqi Freedom was ‘strictly motivated by a desire to exert control over the oil.’
“I think there are reasonable arguments to be made that the net results of Bush’s foreign policy, including the Iraq War, are negative for the USA. “
No, removing Saddam and replacing his terrorist regime with a democratically elected pro-western ally is not negative for the U.S. Abandoning Iraq to al-Qaeda and Iran, as Ron Paul wanted to do, would have been negative for the U.S.
“threat that Saddam represented or the sweeping demographic and cultural changed engendered by the Bush policy of allowing...”
Your interpretation of the legislation is pure fiction, and it didn’t pass anyhow. We have troops deployed in over 100 nations, but notice how the anti-war crowd pretends that the only way to close the southern boarder is by withdrawing from Iraq.
I don’t agree with Ron Paul on many of the specific claims he made about Iraq. I do understand his overall non-interventionist philosophy and see some merit in it.
When discussing the immigration disaster I am not talking about any particular law. I am talking about the piss-poor performance by Bush, who after all the head of the executive branch, in enforcing the border and immigration laws of the USA as they exist. These laws have been flagrently violated and the FedGov under Bush has been largely AWOL on enforcement. (until the last year or two, partially due to the outcry by Conservatives over the issue the McCain bill started).
As for whether the Iraq war was a net plus or minus, you can’t just site the good parts. Yes Saddam, an evil tyrant is gone. (Lots of other evil tyrants remain, though, including the one in Iran. One friend of mine said at the time: we attacked the wrong part of the Axis.)
We also have spent $2 Trillion we don’t have, and we don’t yet know what Iraq will be like in 5 or 10 years.
Maybe it all works out like Bush hopes, and he goes down as a genius. Maybe it all turns to mud and his critics carry the day.
I claim it is too early to say, though I would agree there are many hopeful signs.
BTW: If I thought that Iraq was the reason Bush could not defend the border I would give him a partial pass. I do not. I believe he had all the power, money and laws he needed to bring the flood of illegals down to a trickle. His failure to do so is either a lack of desire or a lack of will, but not a lack of ability.