02-26-2017, 03:12 AM
(02-25-2017, 11:29 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:I've been telling you guys that for years.(02-25-2017, 03:09 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: As Bush stated before the US invasion, he favored regime change in Iraq. The better way to go was not to violate international law and attack a sovereign state without reason. The Arab Spring would have happened 8 years later anyway. The people of Iraq would have risen up then and asked for our support. If the USA favored regime change in Iraq, that was the time-- not to invade, but to support the rebels as we did in Libya (without adequate follow-through), and like we should have done more about in Syria (whose people asked for our support) than we did. Without the prior Iraq invasion and its results, Americans might have been more willing to support the Arab Spring Revolution when it came.
As much as I liked the thought of the Arab Spring, and wish it could have taken hold, nonviolence isn't a good tool when the establishment doesn't respect human rights or human lives. Alas, autocratic tyrannies seem to require violence.