as long as saddam remained a dictator within the borders of iraq, he was properly the iraqi people’s problem to deal with, not ours

us getting rid of him instead of the iraqi people doing it merely treated iraqis as if they were incapable children

if the iraqi people had got rid of him themselves, then maybe the resulting government would have been stronger, and maybe there would have been less chaos and bloodshed in the aftermath. maybe

as it turned out, the iraqi people went from a brutal dictatorship to a country where you could get your head blown off in a public place at any minute, and, as we now see, life under a fragile government that isn’t strong enough to defend itself

assad the younger hasn’t done any better in syria, since he now “rules” about one third of a country that he has fatally weakened in the past few years

the net result is that syria and iraq are both fatally compromised systems that are easy prey to opportunistic infections