Iran, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Turkey read a book titled "Boots on the Ground for Dummies. Iraq: This is hard... I miss when the U.S. would just do everything!
GHW Bush deserves some credit for his handling of the first Gulf War, in that everyone ponied up and delivered. (I have it on good authority that we actually made a PROFIT on the Gulf War!) He did it by forming a real alliance — which he referred to, always as “the allies” — and making it work.GW Bush, on the other hand, was going to go in regardless, because his neocon buddies urged him to, saying it would pay for itself (and not incidentally provide a stable puppet country for Mideast oil). They proposed the same thing to his father, but GHW had been in the world and understood it would never work. He even alluded to it gently in his memoirs. GW wasn’t that smart. So he destabilized the region, cost us unbelievable amounts of money (while cutting taxes on the rich, so we could never make it up until Obama came in), and got NOTHING for our effort and lives.
GHW Bush deserves some credit for his handling of the first Gulf War, in that everyone ponied up and delivered. (I have it on good authority that we actually made a PROFIT on the Gulf War!) He did it by forming a real alliance — which he referred to, always as “the allies” — and making it work.GW Bush, on the other hand, was going to go in regardless, because his neocon buddies urged him to, saying it would pay for itself (and not incidentally provide a stable puppet country for Mideast oil). They proposed the same thing to his father, but GHW had been in the world and understood it would never work. He even alluded to it gently in his memoirs. GW wasn’t that smart. So he destabilized the region, cost us unbelievable amounts of money (while cutting taxes on the rich, so we could never make it up until Obama came in), and got NOTHING for our effort and lives.