[zdragnar]

Round two was based on manufacturing a better ally in the region than the Saudis. After all, this was not too long after 9/11 and despite the lack of public attention, nobody was foolish enough to ignore the role of Saudi nationals in private.

If, as a democracy, Iraq became what Iran could have been (until the revolution), our influence would have played a much stronger moderating force in the middle east.

Instead, we discovered that democracies don't work when people don't want them to. It was a pipe dream that was doomed to fail from its inception.

One unforced error lead to another, and that's a lesson that nobody ever seems to learn.

[verdverm]

> One unforced error lead to another, and that's a lesson that nobody ever seems to learn.

As HR McMaster likes to say, "all wars are the result of a miscalculation"