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Keeping Saddam in power kept a loaded gun pointed to the head of the Iranians.
Have we forgotten the Reagan policy of keeping natural enemies fighting each other to cheaply do our bidding?
^^ Agree
Plus how could we not have known the extreme level of sectarian hatred and dysfunction between the Shiites and the Sunnis? Did we think they would just become "united" overnight after a thousand years of fighting each other?
^^ Agree
Plus how could we not have known the extreme level of sectarian hatred and dysfunction between the Shiites and the Sunnis? Did we think they would just become "united" overnight after a thousand years of fighting each other?
Not so sure there - with a very cleverly managed occupation strategy, that could possibly have worked. People can be surprisingly relaxed about religious differences, if there's a fair chance of a reasonably safe and stable middle-class life for a high enough proportion of the population. Of course, "very clever" and "the GWB administration" are words rarely found in the same sentence.
For same reason we are now trying to destroy ISIS before it does what Saddam wanted and tired to do. As far as executions ISIS is years behind Saddam's total. Cutting a deal is like cutting a deal with Hitler as Chamberlain thought he had. People like to con themselves thru out history and often it leads to terrible consequences. as seen time and again. No dealing with evil.
Not so sure there - with a very cleverly managed occupation strategy, that could possibly have worked. People can be surprisingly relaxed about religious differences, if there's a fair chance of a reasonably safe and stable middle-class life for a high enough proportion of the population. Of course, "very clever" and "the GWB administration" are words rarely found in the same sentence.
The odds were stacked against it. IMO, it would have to have been a nation where much of the power was held by states within the nation with a relatively weak central government.
Sure he was an evil corrupt dictator but he was no actual threat to us and he kept the Middle East in order with an iron fist.
He went off the petro dollar for oil trading.
Same with Ghadaffi in Libya.
That is also why we tried to invade Syria.
But other countries are leaving the petro dollar and there's not a damn thing we can do about it.
We just can't go around invading countries and killing off leaders that go off the petro dollar for trading oil. Russia, China and the BRICS ... are we going to start invading those countries ?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-0...ut-petrodollar
Back in November, before most grasped just how serious the collapse in crude was (and would become, as well as its massive implications), we wrote "How The Petrodollar Quietly Died, And Nobody Noticed", because for the first time in almost two decades, energy-exporting countries would pull their "petrodollars" out of world markets in 2015.
Maybe you should've been President since you clearly know the complicated situation in the Middle East better than Bush did.
Well, if the shoe fits...throw it.
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