Does anyone still believe the Iraq War made the Middle East a safer place?

[Indy Texas]

Surely we can all stop pretending at this point. George W. Bush and the neoconservative ostriches can wait for his great historical vindication until the day he dies but it's never going to come.

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Those in denial do.

[H. Ross Peron]

No obviously

[ElectionsGuy]

It did the exact opposite.

[Deus Naturae]

No, and the same for all of our other invasions, bombing campaigns, and various adventures in the Middle East.

[TDAS04]

Maybe Joe Lieberman thinks that we're safer and that the Mideast is safer, but he's wrong.  

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

In b4 the Serious People start whining about Hussein apologism.

[SNJ1985]

No, and the same for all of our other invasions, bombing campaigns, and various adventures in the Middle East.

[swl]

No. On the other hand it did not make it less safe either.
The place would be ed up anyway, with or without the Iraq war, so there was no point for the US to spend so much money, to lose so many lives and to make so many enemies just to accelerate Saddam Hussein's death.

[Vosem]

I'm inclined to say 'no', but really none of us knows what the result of Saddam being left in power would've been. Didn't vote.

[WalterMitty]

Yes.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Joni Ernest

[Oakvale]

Post hoc ergo propter hoc nonsense. I'd expect nothing less, guys.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Obviously it didn't.

But you guys give too little agency to non-Americans when discussing the middle east. This is true regardless of side.

[Frodo]

With the way events turned out after the initial invasion, of course not.  Though I would be singing a different tune if the Bush administration been far more competent than it was, and chose someone other than Paul Bremer as the prefect of the occupation.  Someone who was intimately familiar with Iraq and the Middle East as a whole -and gave him (or her) greater autonomy than they did.  

[TNF]

Definitely not, given that the IS is a thing and is beheading American journalists in the region these days. The explosion of revolutionary activity in the region as of late is something that shouldn't be looked upon as the direct result of the intervention, though. There's been a lot of pent up development that has now burst from the seems in the context of the Great Recession and a lot of it is obviously very good, productive, and democratic. It is unfortunate that American and Israeli imperialism is holding back/distorting the revolutionary wave in most of the region and tacitly backing reactionary forces, however. One can only hope that the progressive revolutionary forces in places like Kurdistan are successful and able to wipe out and defeat the forces of reaction both within their region and do so in a way that preempts the entry of the United States, the Israelis, or one of the reactionary Arab monarchies into said territories for personal gain.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

No (Obvious push-poll), but as others have pointed out; it isn't just the West at fault.

The rule seems to be that every wannabe Machiavelli who plays with Middle East conflicts has their fingers burnt. Time and time again, states have fought wars through their proxies; and each time it happens, regional stability is set back a couple more decades.

Thank  the region doesn't have nukes (apart from the obvious one).

[Associate Justice PiT]

No, and the same for all of our other invasions, bombing campaigns, and various adventures in the Middle East.

     Considering the effects of our various projects there, I really question the wisdom of us doing anything there now.

[Niemeyerite]

I voted Yes by mistake. But obviously no.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Obviously some people do, but then that's not what's really being asked here is it?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

But you guys give too little agency to non-Americans when discussing the middle east. This is true regardless of side.

It's also absurd to pretend that the Middle East has ever been politically 'stable'. Even in the heyday of the Ottoman Empire that wasn't exactly true...

[bgwah]

If Saddam had stayed in power he probably would have had to deal with the Arab Spring and the potential civil war that would ensue.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

The Bush administration is responsible for the rise of ISIS. Its chief error wasn't removing Saddam Hussein from power but in conducting the occupation of Iraq as a kind of political affectation designed to curry the favor of the American public. Naturally, superficial wars entail running from the harsh realities of nation-building that are the foundation of stable post-war climates. When Iraq's historical treasure was looted, Donald Rumsfeld made a quip about the large number of vases in Iraqi museums. As hundreds of men were murdered and hundreds of women were raped in a lawless Baghdad, Donald Rumsfeld claimed that the press was hyperbolic. As Iraq's institutions were disintegrating, officials in the Bush administration celebrated. For nearly four years, the Bush administration acted in this grandstanding/delusional manner and the Middle East has paid the price.

[AggregateDemand]

The safety and security of the region was not the primary motivation behind intervention in Iraq. The Iraqi people were living in a sort of benevolent tyranny, secured by UN oversight and subsidies. The Iraqi people had no self-determination and no viable domestic political body to influence the direction of their country.

The people who were complacent to leave Iraqis in benevolent tyranny were the same who argued that blacks would be better off as slaves. GWB understood the legacy of his father's decision to defer to the UN. He was eager for change. The war hawks were anxious to have a second front on Iran's western border.