And so it begins
by digby
Here it is — Bush Was Right:
Bush administration officials feared a repeat of Iran’s 1979 revolution, when the collapse of an oppressive, U.S.-backed government led to a power vacuum that violently anti-American Islamists were best positioned to exploit. Iraq aside, the Freedom Agenda was intended less to bring about full-blown transitions to democracy than to treat the pathologies of existing regimes, maximize the capacity of secular opposition groups to compete with Islamists, and dispel the widespread belief among Arabs that the United States, as Al-Quds al-Arabi editor Abdelbari Atwan once put it, “wants us to have dictators and monarchical presidents.”
You have to love the “Iraq aside …” Other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you like the play?
This article, the first of many to come I’m sure, is an attempt to give the Bush administration credit for every good thing that unfolded in the middle east since he’s left office while ignoring the dead elephants all over the region that his misguided policies left in his wake.
Bush always had an interesting take on his own legacy. This was in 2004:
In two interviews with Woodward in December, Bush minimized the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction, expressed no doubts about his decision to invade Iraq, and enunciated an activist role for the United States based on it being “the beacon for freedom in the world.”
“I believe we have a duty to free people,” Bush told Woodward. “I would hope we wouldn’t have to do it militarily, but we have a duty.”
The president described praying as he walked outside the Oval Office after giving the order to begin combat operations against Iraq, and the powerful role his religious belief played throughout that time.
“Going into this period, I was praying for strength to do the Lord’s will. … I’m surely not going to justify war based upon God. Understand that. Nevertheless, in my case I pray that I be as good a messenger of His will as possible. And then, of course, I pray for personal strength and for forgiveness.”
The president told Woodward that “I am prepared to risk my presidency to do what I think is right. I was going to act. And if it could cost the presidency, I fully realized that. But I felt so strongly that it was the right thing to do that I was prepared to do so.”
Asked by Woodward how history would judge the war, Bush replied: “History. We don’t know. We’ll all be dead.”
Some people sooner than others — thanks to him.
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