Although the Iraq War was justified as is any war against any Islamic entity is, the aftermath was just plain stupid. In a bout of Naivete the Bush administration led by Wilsonian Progressives actually believed that Iraqis wanted Democracy. As it turned out, the Shias wanted an Iranian puppet regime and the Sunnis eventually threw in with the Islamic State. Donald Rumsfeld admits trying to install democracy in Iraq was a mistake.
Washington (CNN)Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld insisted in an interview with CNN Tuesday that his recent comments about being skeptical about creating a democracy in Iraq did not contradict his previous positions about the Iraq War.
Rumsfeld also called the Times of London’s report over the weekend — which suggested his views were critical of his old boss, President George W. Bush — “ridiculous.”
“When we went in (to Iraq), my view — and I thought it was a broadly held view — was that the goal was to have Saddam Hussein not be there, and to have what replaced Saddam Hussein be a government that would not have weapons of mass destruction, that would not invade its neighbors, and that would be reasonably respectful of diverse ethnic groups — meaning the Sunni, the Shia, the Kurds,” Rumsfeld told CNN in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon. “And that was kind of the understanding I had and I thought everyone had.”
In a story titled “Bush was wrong on Iraq, says Rumsfeld,” Rumsfeld told The Times that “the idea that we could fashion a democracy in Iraq seemed to me unrealistic. I was concerned about it when I first heard those words … I’m not one who thinks that our particular template of democracy is appropriate for other countries at every moment of their histories.”
[….]
Rumsfeld, who served as Bush’s defense secretary from 2001 to 2006, also told The Times that removing former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was a mistake because it destabilized the region.
Sadly many in both parties particularly the GOP think imposing Democracy should be done at all costs.
Tags: Donald Rumsfeld, Iraq War
