Death of Michael Ledeen, maker of the phony case for the invasion of Iraq

$2 trillion for that war. Next time let’s cure cancer(s).

Correct, no one said it would be easy. True we would likely not have succeeded, but millions more would be cancer survivors.

> $2 trillion for that war. Next time let’s cure cancer(s).

Aren't there any positive tradeoffs in overthrowing the likes of Saddam Hussein?

The problem was that he was holding Iraq together. After he fell, we ended up with a situation where there are about 1/2 as many Iraqi Christians in Sweden as there are in Iraq.

Basically, Iraq went straight to hell, and whatever minorities etc. didn't flee got murdered.

I interpret it as something along the lines of Saddam Hussein's government caring about having a strong or at least functional country enough that they only wanted to kill Kurds and Iranians.

Baathists are better than sectarian madmen, and I suspect we'll see some kind of idiot outcome in Syria as well.

> The problem was that he was holding Iraq together.

Not really. He was oppressing Iraq and ruling it with a cruel tight grip, but any regime change takes decades to normalize. You don't just replace a nation's political class overnight and expect to a) not have pushback, b) the successors having it easy or hitting the ground running.