Analysis of Iraq War

"It is historically inaccurate to say the war was cooked up by Bush alone" (Victor Davis Hanson). 

Key point: "One can blame almost anyone, but one must not invent facts to support an argument." 

Which is what Democrats are trying to do, now that their president has given away the fragile, hard-fought peace that so many died for.

 "Looking Back at Iraq," by Victor Davis Hanson (historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University).

Stop Rewriting History, Democrats

Iraq is back in the news, and not surprisingly, so is George W. Bush. Anything happening in the Middle East today is Bush's fault. 

Frankly, I'm weary of the way the Dems try to re-write history. 

In case they've forgotten that many of their key players were worried about Saddam Hussein back in the late 90's and supported George Bush's attempts to topple him in the early 2000's, here's a small refresher.




Oh, and while we're on the subject, let's not forget that as recently as 2010, the Obama administration was quite pleased with the way things were going in Iraq. Mr. Biden again: 





Peter Wehner, writing in Commentary Magazine, says the following: 

A fair-minded reading of the facts, I think, shows that when Mr. Obama was sworn in, the Iraq war had more or less been won. Things were fragile to be sure. But the errors that were made during the occupation of Iraq following the fall of Saddam, which were extremely costly, were corrected in 2007. That was when President Bush made what is in my estimation his most impressive decision. In the face of enormous political opposition, with the nation weary of the war, Mr. Bush implemented a new counterinsurgency strategy, dubbed the “surge” and led by the estimable General David Petraeus. It resulted in startling gains.  

By the time the surge ended in 2008, violence in Iraq had dropped to the lowest level since the first year of the war. Sectarian killings had dropped by 95 percent. By 2009, U.S. combat deaths were extremely rare. (In December of that year there were no American combat deaths in Iraq.) Iraq was on the mend. Even Barack Obama, who opposed the surge every step of the way, conceded in September 2008 that it had succeeded in reducing violence “beyond our wildest dreams.”

"What Kind of Iraq Did Obama Inherit?" (Peter Wehner, Commentary Magazine, June 19, 2014). 

Enough, Democrats. Enough of the lying, enough of the blaming, enough of the dissembling, enough of the petty politics, enough of the demonizing. Your party and your leader are taking America down a terrible path. If George W. Bush made mistakes in his attempts to deal with unspeakable evil, at least he was man enough to face them and courageous enough to correct them. 

Now it's your turn. Man up, Mr. Obama. If necessary, ask the good people of the other party to help you and advise you. The time to stop playing politics is now because the evil menacing us today eclipses the evil Mr. Bush faced back then. It's time to set aside your ego and your narcissism and your arrogance. The future of our country, and perhaps even the world, are at stake. 

Prager U: "Why America Invaded Iraq"

I'm posting this 5-minute video, "Why America Invaded Iraq," presented by British historian Andrew Roberts (bio here). 

People who are still convinced of the "Bush lied/people died" meme will find something to criticize about his analysis, but I'm of the opinion that there was both logic and sound analysis behind the decision to go to war.

This brief presentation addresses the argument that Saddam Hussein presented a huge obstacle to peace in the Middle East, that the goal of removing him in order to allow a "functioning democracy" a chance to spread in the region made sense, especially since Hussein refused to comply with U.N resolutions, dismissed U.N weapons' inspectors, had a history of using poison gas during the Iran/Iraq war, and refused to back down, even after having seen his military defeated in 1999 when he invaded Kuwait.

Even the argument about Bush being wrong that Hussein had WMD's falters when examining the facts known at the time about Hussein. Not only did Hussein have a history of using these weapons, he tried to convince the world that he would use them. Bluffs like this (assuming it was a bluff) cannot be ignored. Bush was not alone in taking him seriously. The decision to go to war came with the agreement of our allies, and members of Congress, including key Democrats like Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Joe Biden, and others.

 

Source: Prager University

Back to the present. It's fascinating to see John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, etc. arguing in favor of bombing Syria and punishing Bashar al-Assad for using poison gas. Putting aside the question of whether or not this is a good idea, I can't help but wonder if at least some of the WMD's being employed by al-Assad were at one time used by Saddam Hussein. 

During the heated debate over whether or not Hussein actually had WMD's, culminating in the conclusion that he did not, I recall some mention of whether it was possible that he had possibly smuggled the weapons out of the country during the time weapons' inspectors were evicted. Where might the weapons have been concealed? None other than Syria. 

Here we are, a decade later, watching Barack Obama (he of the Bush lied ilk) being forced to make the hard decisions that his predecessor confronted. How ironic would it be if the very weapons al-Assad is using today are the very ones that Hussein used during his reign?