Sober historians are already saying that invading Iraq was a major mistake which was based on false premises: <Sober historians will look much kinder on Reagan and Bush for "winning" security for the US by actually winning rather than posing for peace to win elections.>
I'm not so convinced that it was a major mistake. It wasn't something I thought was a good idea, nor would I have taken the job on, but it does have its redeeming merits.
Reagan didn't win anything against the USSR. He continued to support Osama's and Jimmy Carter's campaign against USSR in Afghanistan, defeating Gorby in favour of Osama. You are aware of the blow-back that came from Jimmy Carter's and Zbigniew Brezinski's inducement of war in Afghanistan with USSR which "gave them their Vietnam". Go Team America!
Gorby canceled the cold war unilaterally. Gorby was the hero of that process, not Reagan. Reagan was just a bystander. Gorby didn't intend the USSR collapse but because he wasn't a murderous tyrant, there was no means to hold the thing together when the local yokels decided to go their own ways.
The thugs took Gorby prisoner and tried to take over, but Yeltsin met them with tanks and won the day along with Vodka and a carve-up of state assets to opportunistic oligarchs.
Neither did the USA beat Germany, but they would have done with the nukes and they certainly contributed a lot. The USSR did most of the heavy lifting. Germany had the rest of Europe pretty well sewn up and thought they could take on USSR as well - silly, but that's the way megalomaniacs go.
Overall, it's a good thing that Saddam, Uday and Qusay aren't murdering more people, but there are plenty of others who have been doing so in Iraq now that Saddam can't stop them. Saddam made a big mistake being fooled by April Glaspie into invading Kuwait. That led to fantastic profits for oil producers and others. Getting competition off the market is generally considered a good thing. If not by fair means, then foul. Kuwait should be part of Iraq. The arbitrary British boundaries meant few people benefited from the huge oil wealth of Kuwait. At the time they were drawn, the borders were obviously a good idea.
Mqurice |
