Invading Iraq totally destabilized the Middle East and gave us the Islamic State (IS) — the latest in a long line of public figures to give voice to this combination of ignorance and amnesia is Donald Trump.
Speaking to Bret Baier on Fox News, the Republican presidential contender declared, “I think it was one of the worst decisions ever made. [George W. Bush] has totally destabilized the Middle East. Had Saddam Hussein still be in charge, you wouldn’t have the problems that you have right now.”
Really?
It wasn’t the dismantling of Saddam Hussein’s criminal and genocidal regime that destabilized the Middle East. The Middle East was not stable in 2003, before U.S.-led forces invaded.
In case people have forgotten, Saddam had invaded two countries, Iran and Kuwait; set alight the Kuwaiti oil fields; conducted two decades of genocidal assaults on Iraqi Kurds; attacked the marsh Arabs in the Iraqi south, destroying their environs and unique way of life; lavishly funded Palestinian suicide bombers; and produced the lion’s share of Mideast refugees that were flooding the world in the first years of the 21st century.
No, it was the withdrawal of all American forces in 2011 that permitted Shia-dominated Iraq to drift into the Shia Iranian orbit and trigger a corresponding Sunni jihadist war led by IS — not the initial American decision to invade.