Bluesman

Correct.

Because if ANYbody got overthrown, the preferable outcome was the IRANIANS losing to Saddam, not the other way around. As bad as a Saddam victory would be, and Iranian one was Gotterdammerung. (And keep in mind: if the Democrats get their way and we retreat from Iraq...that very outcome, so unthinkable, may very well occur.)

And then Iran gets a nuke.

And you don't see what the big deal is, whether Iraq or iran controls both countries.

Mighta heard we fought a war or two against Saddam. He INVADED KUWAIT, so that purty much changed our relationship with him (although as soon as he had become more of a liability than an asset - that is, he settled his war with the worst of our regional enemies - the Iranians - we kicked him to the curb).

But it's not so much what's changed (and your asking that question tells me you not only don't know the very simple and obvious answer to THAT one, but far more importantly, the answer to the NEXT one, to wit but what's remained constant: IRAN is the worst and most dangerous enemy in the region. It always was, ever since the shah was overthrown by the ayatollahs (and, again: this was absolutely the fault of the Democrats and their policy - unchanged since 1948, the year China was lost to the communists...by the Democrats...of cutting adrift vitally-important strategic allies, who are invariably replaced by the most intractable and dangerous enemies).

That is an unitendedly EXCELLENT question. I know you didn't ask it in the spirit that I'm going to answer it, though, as the question as you've asked it is meant to imply that we shouldn't have done EITHER, and the way I'm going to answer it is because we should've done BOTH. But as dalem is fond of pointing out (correctly): 'We fought in Iraq so that we wouldn't have to fight everywhere else.' And, if the Democrats weren't so hell-bent on losing this war, it may have worked out that way.

Take a look at your map, and you'll see that Iraq is right in the big fat middle of our worst problems: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Turkey and the Persian Gulf. Imagine, if you can (and as a Democrat, that's a doubtful proposition), that an American ally, armed and trained by us, guaranteed by us, backed by us is RIGHT THERE, cheek-by-jowl with our enemies. If the undermining that has gone on had NOT happened and the insurgency had collapsed...this would be OUR ENEMIES' crisis, not ours. Imagine the ayatollahs, the sheiks, the thug regimes all around Iraq being worried about THEIR borders and who's crossing them in the middle of the night. Imagine the example set by the Iraqis to their neighbors, as they got wealthier and freer, and those other captive peoples wondered, 'Why not us, too?'

THAT is the set-up of the pieces in 2003. But in 2006, after a full-court press by Democrat defeatists, we're back on OUR heels, wondering if we can even a achieve a draw against a few thousand punks with rifles, much less a world-changing strategic victory.

I blame YOUR PARTY, because the play was excellent; but none of us counted on quite how treacherous Democrats were prepared to be to defeat their own country and re-claim power.

Our own fault, really. The signs were always there, ever since the Democrats stopped supporting their own country, and started rooting for our enemies.

They were wrong, and I knew it at the time, too. We pulled our punch, and in war, that is ALWAYS a mistake. In a war with ARABS, that's doubly true, as they take it as weakness (which it really is, after all), and they think they beat you on points.

We should've immediately turned towards Baghdad, and crushed Saddam then and there. But it was a miscalculation based on something that WAS still true: IRAN is FAR more dangerous than Saddam's Iraq, so if we topple our 'counter-weight', do the Iranians stand to benefit? I thought it was a specious argument then, and I still do.

So, we listened to our Ivy League nitwits at the State Department (most apt nickname in the entire Federal Government: 'Foggy Bottom'), and we compounded the mistake by giving the signal for the Shiites to rise against Saddam...and then stood by and watched while he slaughtered them. We're still paying for that mistake, because an Arab's memory is longer than a Scottish pawnbrokers', and his sense of grudge and revenge makes a Sicilian seem like the soul of conciliation.) Is it any wonder it's tough to get the Iraqis to commit their families' lives to our word when Dubya's daddy, a Republican (sort of), screwed 'em then, and Democrats want to screw 'em NOW?

See above.

Why can't I say '9/11'? You believe what the Democrats say, that Iraq isn't part of the Global War on Terror? Well, it dam' sure IS, and the world that saw such awful calls after Gulf War I is GONE. The world HAS changed, and that you would ask that - 'What has changed?' - shows a mindset so blinkered, so detached from reality that there is simply no way of getting through to you.

Do you not KNOW what has changed and how and why since 9/11?

__________________
"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory."
- George Orwell