Fair. But we will never know what events would unfold if we did not invade Iraq. Perhaps Saddam would have unleashed hell on the region and/or world. Perhaps not.
So we need to deal with today’s reality.
I graciously grant you that.
What do we do now?
Simple. Let them kill each other. ISIS is a group that arose in the Sunni-Shiite split in Syria. They're not about "Death to America" nearly as much as they're all about "Death to Shiites."
It's really made to order for us. Let the Sunnis fight the Shias and bleed each other dry. We can clean up selling weapons and materiel to both sides. We might have to do a few surgical strikes here and there to keep the war going for a couple of decades until Islam is spent as a force, at least for a very long time.
If they attack us, kill them all. Otherwise, make as much money as possible.
It's really a no-brainer, once one gets beyond the whole Cowboy in White Hat paradigm.
” Perhaps Saddam would have unleashed hell on the region and/or world. Perhaps not.”
The world? The region? Please, Saddam couldn’t even defeat Iran. His only conquest was tiny Kuwait.
To his north was Turkey which would have chewed up Iraq for drill. To his west was Syria, a Baathist ally, and Jordan which Iraq might have been able to roll. South is Saudi Arabia but that meant taking on the United States. The only other border country was Kuwait.
Iraq didn’t have a blue water navy, a strategic air force or ballistic missiles. Even if they had managed to get a nuclear bomb they couldn’t have delivered it very far. Iraq was at most a problem for its smaller neighbors, and Saddam was more of an admirer of Joe Stalin than of Mohammed.