Look, as a Iranian who has had realitives fight off Saddam's army in the 8 year bloody war with us , i can wholeheartedly say i dislike him greatly. But lets face it, the war against him was done under false pretences. 1: Links to Alqaeda?... so far that has never been any conclusive finds that links Saddam's regime to Alqaeda. 2: Saddam was a secularist rather then religious Ideologist. hence he did'nt believe in hardline islam or fanaticale terrorisim. 3:This is the most Important factor. Is Iraq any better off now then what it was under him?.. Iraq is a mess. religious in-fighting will eventually lead to a allout civil-war. many US generals are echoing my sentiment . Soon Iraqi woman are gonna be treated like second class citizens when the Islamic laws will be Implemented. Also what i cant understand is how un-informed were the pentigun fficials about chalabi and jaffari?. those two were clearly spies working for the mollah's in neighbouring iran. they spent the duration of the iran and iraq war in iran. they were clearly trained by the Iranian Intelligence officialls for one day running iraq and serving the mollah's interests. I just cant see how cheany and Rummi could'nt figure this out. in summary, the US went and knocked-out the most unlikely regime that had any links to alqaeda, yet strengthened the most terrorist sponserd regime in the region. the mollah's are now running iraq too.
We should not have taken him out. We are not in the business of nation building, and nation building can not succeed with the population, or large elements thereof, see us as a colonial force.
How many deaths does it take for a head of state to become a murderer? How do you prosecute his crimes?
Can we admit that Iraq is a mistake while planning to invade another ME country? We have 2 years left to find out.
DD, Isolation clearly was'nt working, but the Situation has become 10 folds worse with his overthrow. i agree that we should have got a couple of his generals to take him out. but saddam is a survivor. not sure that we could have got him that way either. rodrick, the bush SNR was scared of a shah theocracy hence he setteled with letting saddam in power. Bush Jnr is a dumb b*stard. he went in there without a real viable or a realistic alternative. NewYorker i agree. Dubios it's not our job to takeout every dictator militarily. we should have supported a coupe. going in there was a huge mistake.
1 Overthrowing Saddam with a coup was much easier said than done. During his last 4-5 years in power he had so many purges I lost count. Saddam was paranoid to the uttermost for good reason. 2 Isolation wasn't working, much of it due to slippage during the Clinton administration IMO. The U.S. was losing control of the "steering wheel" when it came to Iraq. 3 Saddam was a bloody murdered by anyone's definition. Still, the invasion was a huge mistake (made on false pretenses) by a blundering, lying Bush administration.
But my point is, if we could'nt taken him out without a coupe, then we should'nt have taken him out at all.the Situation in iraq has made the Midd-east even more volatile.
In retrospect? Probably not.. Sad to say, but the the Iraqi civilians were living a safer and more peaceful life under Saddam than under GW.
And Mao, Deng Xiaoping, Pol Pot, Putin, Robert Mugabe, and Andrew Jackson et. al. The difference in Bush and Blair is that are freely elected heads of state that can be porsecuted by their own peoples should they choose.
^^^^^^ Exactly... Now iraq is infested by fanaticale hardline shia terrorists(moqtada sadr's army). not to mention iraq will turninto a refelection of the dictatorship theocracy in iran.
I thought it worked great - he didn't have any "weapons of mass destruction" and was completely contained and there was no terrorist activity within his country. He probably was a model Islamic state compared to Iran.
Islamic State?.. saddam was a seularist. not a perfect one. but iraq under him was not a religious state at all...
Fascist leaders strive to develop a cult of personality where they are preeminent to any other organized institutions that might challenge them. I think Stalin wouldn't have pushed agnosticism in Russia if he didn't see the Russian Orhtodox Church as a potential rallying point to oppose him. I don't think he had the idealism of Lenin and Marx, he just wanted absolute power. Whenever you see big murals and statues everywhere of a living leader, you know you've got trouble.
I've met many Russians who admit Stalin was a murder, but believed he forced russia to stan on her own two feet. sometimes an iron fist is needed to get a nation on her feet.
