Five years after the terrorist attacks on New York, the best that can be said about our situation is that it could be worse. The response from our elected leaders, and particularly the Bush Administration, has been comprehensively bungled, or worse, undermined by the pursuit of private and political advantage, and pre-existing political agendas, at the expense of a concerted attack on those who are trying to kill us. Incompetence and worse has been rife at every level from the tactical (the failure to catch bin Laden when he was surrounded) to the operational (the various stages of the Iraq occupation, starting with a Provisional Administration hired from Republican job message boards) the strategic (the whole Iraq war) and the moral (the many crimes that have blurred the difference between us and the terrorists). All of these things have squandered our resources, while acting as a recruiting banner for our enemies.
The only thing that has prevented things being even worse is the gratuitous bloodthirstiness of our enemies. Brutal attacks in Muslim countries, executions of innocent people shown on video, and the continuous suicide-terror attacks on ordinary people going about their daily business have shown their true nature, and discredited radical Islamism among many who remain deeply hostile to the US and the Bush Administration. As I mentioned a year ago, in countries like Indonesia , the Iraq war has been highly unpopular, but the great achievement of JI has been to make themselves even more unpopular.
The most significant change since last year is that we no longer hear much about “good news from Iraq”, except in the same context as “mission accomplished”, “turning the corner” and similar discredited phrases. A year ago, pro-war opinion was united in the belief that the Mainstream Media were presenting an overly gloomy picture and that the truth could be found in sites like Arthur Chrenkoff’s Good News from Iraq, which cataloged steady improvements on all fronts, from electricity supplies to security. Chrenkoff ceased publication just under a year ago, and handed the baton to Good News from the front, which appears to have given up the struggle around May 2006.
In retrospect, it is obvious that the Mainstream Media have consistently got things wrong, but in the opposite direction to that claimed by the Good News. At every stage, things have gone worse than would have been expected by anyone relying on say, the New York Times, rather than bloggers like Juan Cole It’s been at least a couple of years since Western reporters could safely travel independently anywhere in Iraq, and they’ve been increasingly reliant on the Pentagon for news.
Of course, there are still some, totally cut off from reality like our own Andrew Bolt. In the alternate universe inhabited by Bolt, everything is going swimmingly, and patience is all that is needed.
Recognising that the Iraq venture has been a disastrous failure doesn’t help us that much, since all our options there are awful. But maybe some sort of partition can be managed, enabling the Coalition to declare victory and pull out without leaving too much chaos behind them. Then perhaps, we might focus on our real problems.
John Quiggin 
What a jaundiced view of the actions of all sides.
The west faces several problems:
1. No effective way to legitimise interference in another sovereign State’s internal affairs. No clear agreement of the actions by the defaulting State that are unacceptable enough to warrant interference; No effective mechanism for making the interference effective.
2. That there appears to be a link between certain forms of Government and the development of violent direct action groups.
3. The bangs that can be got by the violent direct action groups for a given number of bucks have increased very significantly.
4. In managing these problems the clash between rights and between principles is accentuated.
5. The development of better governance (thus reducing the attractiveness of violent direct action) in the Arabian peninsular depends on destabilising the Saudi Arabian regime and destabilising Iran.
6. The control of violent direct action groups appears to be difficult without accepting extra-judicial action.
Similarly the other sides face some problems.
1. their only effective weapons are not capable (for various reasons) of being reasonably targeted at military targets (the problem that faced the west in the Second World War)
2. Being small groups in a much larger population they sooner or later have to depend on a mixture of support and terror.
3. They have a different view of the rights and principles that should govern human interaction from ours (more our problem than theirs).
They all seem to be doing a reasonable job of muddling through in a responsive way.
The west so far has not institionalised the ongoing deliberate targeting of non-combatant without reasonable military reasons for doing so.
The use of brutality and torture by the west appears to be reasonably well controlled.
The other sides do not appear to have antagonised the people they need to an extent that detracts from their effectiveness as fighting units.
The other sides appear to be winning the propaganda war, but given our resources this should change.
If Clinton and friends (Sandy Bergler et alia) hadn’t let bin Laden get away about a half-dozen times, we wouldn’t have to “capture” him now.
We can be grateful to Clinton, however, for bombing that aspirin factory.
Some even believe he killed an Al Qaeda camel.
Why do you hate America, CL ?
OK JQ – clean slate then – you are POTUS and 9/11 has just occured. What do you do over the next 5 years . . .
I don’t know what you wouldn’t have done. What would you done to make us all safer? how would you have stopped the Bali bombings (MkI)??
“Why do you hate America, CL ?”
Only criticism of Republican presidents indicates hatred of America. Criticism of Democratic presidents is pro-American, because Democrats are themselves anti-American.
Taust:
The “west’s problems”, seen from a different angle:
(1) The problem here is to overcome the unworthy sense of shame that afflicts the leaders of those western nations that truly consider they have the right to intrude on other nations’ sovereign territory.
(2) If only they wised up and bought into “our” form of government, aggressive violence against other nations would cease.
(3) The “bangs per buck” that can be got by American use of its own military technology has escalated hugely in recent decades. Have a look at the “kill ratio” when the Americans are engaged against civilians, or mixtures of civilians and opposing combatants. In Somalia (1991), it was about 50:1 (i.e., 50 dead Somalis per dead American). In Iraq, it appears to be about the same, if we accept that about 100,000 Iraqis have died dince the invasion. Shades of Vietnam: “Look what they’re doing to us (as we go about killing many times more of them)!!”
(4) What “rights”? What “principles”?
(5) Why destabilise Saudi and why destabilise Iran? This seems to be just another case of not liking democracy when it produces an outcome the “west” doesn’t like.
(6) Appears to be a quaint euphemism for the use of torture.
“The west so far has not institionalised the ongoing deliberate targeting of non-combatant without reasonable military reasons for doing so.”
How so? The deliberate targeting of non-combatants during World War II (Germany, Japan) was carried out in spite of there being no military justification for such indiscriminate practices. (When the A-bomb was dropped on the centre of Hiroshima, it was known quite well that the industrial areas of the city were located on the periphery.)
“3. They have a different view of the rights and principles that should govern human interaction from ours (more our problem than theirs).”
Since “rights” are basically an invention of “the west”, it’s far from clear why “rights” should have any influence on the thinking of the “other side”.
Ender : Where are you Crawl out from under your log and share your conspiracy theories…
I suspect my date for the US/UN intervention in Somalia should be 1993, not 1991 (?).
chrisl – “Ender : Where are you Crawl out from under your log and share your conspiracy theories…”
Sorry to disappoint you ChrisL I do not have conspiracy theories only questions that cannot be answered. If you think you can answer them I am only to willing to post them.
What we do know now is that Sunnis and Shiites hate each others guts at least as much as their respective militants hate ours. We also know once and for all they can’t form reasonably civil democratic societies, either among themselves or with each other. In a sad kind of way that’s progress for we infidels, for while they’ve turned their hatred on each other and to a lesser extent our military, they have not had the wherewithal to seriously attack us on our own soil like Sept11. We can probably leave Iraq to their internicene squabbles reasonably soon. Let Wahabbist Sunni Arabs clash with Shiite Persians in the land of the 2 rivers now for as long as they like. In the meantime it’s important to neutralise any nuclear advantage Iran might seek and persevere against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It’s critically important for us to ensure Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal doesn’t fall into the hands of our sworn enemies. Apart from that Islam can tear itself to pieces for as long as it cares to as far as we infidels are concerned.
“you are POTUS and 9/11 has just occured. What do you do over the next 5 years . . .”
I’d get my ambassadors to visit with just about every serious islamic leader with credibility in the eyes of muslims in every country with significant muslim populations, including western ones. I would order the ambassadors to negotiate anti Al-Quaeda fatwa’s. In the climate after 9/11 I am pretty sure you could have gotten them from at least the majority Islamic religous scholars, provided you were willing to go about it in a serious respectful way and take your time about it. Don’t forget there were spontaneous anti-terrorism demonstrations in Tehran at the time. Even today not many islamic religious leaders condone suicide bombing.
Al-Quaeda is based on a belief that it is the true defender of the Islamic countries and traditions. They take the scholarly tradition in Islam very seriously and use that fact to enhance their own legitimacy and public support. Al-Quaeda’s achillies heel is that their method of suicide bombing against innocent civilians is on very shaky ground from a religous point of view. In order to justify it they had to go through some quite convoluted reasoning to get support from even relatively minor religous scholars.
If pretty much the entire Islamic scholarly/religious leadership lined up against them it would have destroyed Al-Quaeda’s legitimacy almost overnight. There would probably be some kind of debate lasting a few weeks, but it would have been like a 3rd rate union hack trying to simultaneously take on John Howard, Bob Hawke and Gough Whitlam. At the time Bin Laden simply lacked the credibilty and political/religious weight to have a hope of winning that fight and I’m sure he knew it. Today, unfortunately, things are different. By the end of 2002 Al-Quaeda could have been a spent force with little support.
I don’t think any US president would have done this. It probably would have been politically impossible for various domestic reasons. But if someone like Clinton had really tried I think they could have pulled it off.
Of course I would be doing all the other stuff. Domestic security. Physically going after the terrorists and probably would have invaded Afghanistan as well, and I am not even sure trying to politically isolate Al-Quaeda would have been my primary focus. But its what my instinct would be to do. Its just common sense to isolate your enemy politically, and with 5 years of hindsight i think it would have worked.
I am sure alot of people think this is fantasy stuff, and the “Islamofacist” crowd probably find the idea of a debate within islam absurd almost by definition. But at the end of the day even Bush’s strategy in the GWOT is a political one. His is to bring democracy to the middle east and “win hearts and minds”, whatever that means. I just think that you could have acheived 100 times more simply by exploiting the goodwill America had on September 12th 2001 and aiming it at Al-Quaeda’s inherent religous weaknesses.
“you are POTUS and 9/11 has just occured. What do you do over the next 5 years . . .�
I would have done what Bush did (at least publicly) for the first few months. The divergence would have started about the time the Taliban fled Kabul.
I would have put more US troops in to go after OBL and Mullah Omar, invited other countries in for peacekeeping and spent a lot more money on reconstruction.
Then, with luck, bin Laden would have been caught and at a minimum, the Afghan exercise would have had a chance of working.
In the Middle East, I would have pushed harder and earlier for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza and spent more money to help moderate Palestinians.
Finally, I would have done the hearts and minds stuff as suggested by SWIO instead of throwing US weight around and encouraging the kinds of rhetoric we saw from the warbloggers, Fox News and similar.
BTW, as you can check from the blog since 2002. this isn’t wisdom of hindsight stuff. These are the policies I’ve been advocating all along.
What would Al-Quaeda done in response to your strategy?
When would you post the photo’s of some senior western representative shaking hands with some senior opponent in the course of the diplomatic actions?
Which other countries would assist in the endeavour?
“I would have put more US troops in to go after OBL and Mullah Omar,”
With all due respect John you would have faced the problem of invading much of Pakistan to do so and one wonders if that would have been any more productive than being in Iraq now. As well you would have faced the full force of foreign Jihadists in support of Pakistan and Afghanistan that the Coalition have experienced in Iraq to date. As it stands now, you have to face the rather unpleasant truth that Coalition troops can leave Iraqis to it almost immediately, whereas that’s not true in Afghanistan, in terms of the likely consequences. (AQ in Iraq would have their hands full with the Shiites whereas the Taliban and their cheer squads wouldn’t) Of course it’s highly likely that this Default Plan B, was envisaged as the most probable downside of invading Iraq, in the event that the ultimate prize was politically unachievable. Personally I think Bush and Blair are about to withdraw from Iraq(6-12 months) and leave the problem on Iran’s doorstep. I have a feeling that’s not something Tehran will relish, particularly now that Israel has called its Hezbollah bluff in Lebanon. With an Iranian backed Shiite majority in Iraq, threatening a Sunni minority there, Sunni Arabs across the ME will be amenable to the Anglos or their proxy Israel taking out Iran’s nuclear facilities. Oh they’ll tut-tut appropriately in public, but quietly praise Allah for helping their true Muslims.
I notice Hamas and Fatah are good buddies again and forming a coalition govt of national unity. What’s the matter boys? Oil money from Saddam a bit thin on the ground these days?
I am, predictably, with SWIO. There are Islamic States in the world. They aren’t going to be magically transformed into foreign versions of Celebration (the Disney-run gated residential community in Florida – all picket fences and SUVs) overnight. Nor are they (or “we”) all similar, so the “them and us” dichotomy is pretty bogus anyway. “We” all have to live with “them”, though “we” don’t have to admire or even like “them”. Ditto for “them” in regard to “us”. “We” do have to understand “them” enough to bargain with “them” over trade, immigration and other issues which affect both “them” and “us”.
So let’s stop referring to foreigners as “our enemies”. That doesn’t help to develop a workable bargaining relationship. And if the short of memory complain that such a strategy is impossible in the aftermath of the World Trade Centre destruction, I suggest that some time reading a little more deeply about the sad history of Great Power intervention in the Middle East and what is now Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran would show that the WTC casualties were minor in comparison with the damage that has been inflicted on that part of the world.
“In the Middle East, I would have pushed harder and earlier for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza and spent more money to help moderate Palestinians.”
Like Arafat’s wife. Hah!
I am sure alot of people think this is fantasy stuff.
Especially Muslims probably.
Why do you hate America, CL?
I don’t, John. You do – that’s why you write these faux-reasonable little essayettes that are shot through with Bush Derangement Syndrome and historical invention.
Your obsession with the “catastophe” of Iraq is a case in point. We’re talking about a politico-military campaign that has lasted about as long as ONE Australian parliamentary term. Kim Beazley hasn’t published an IR blueprint in that time. The good accomplished in Iraq has been astonishing and it has come despite the Western left’s moral support for Saddam Hussein – whose policies of state terrorism and mass murder they like to think of as “stability”.
The Democrats threaten the broadcast licence of a network that tells the truth about the lead-up to 9/11 but they aren’t quite as censorious about nominating a 9/11 conspiracy theorist for a seat in Congress.
They hate America.
I find it interesting, John, that you scoff at the Saddam connection to terrorism (a scepticism demolished for all time by Hitchens last night on the ABC) but you jump at the connection with Israel. How irrelevant that is has been demonstrated by Hezbollah and Hamas – which both escalated their terror attacks on Israel despite withdrawals.
While true saddam should have been toppled, it is irresponsible how the american administration approached it.
With all its think-tanks they probably should have predicted an Iraq full of militants loyal to saddam and that any democratic process would bring Shias, the majority, to the leadership. The result would be civil war between a group with weapons who have ruled the country for centuries (albeit being the minority) and a group who are here to do the right thing.
So does Islam feature as a party in this civil conflict (like one blogger here suggested) ?
Why should Islam even be mentioned. It is a conflict caused by the ill desires of a group with weapons left behind by the saddam regime. You cannot say saddam was a ruler because he was a muslim. Rather, he claimed to be so because he was the ruler, since this is what keeps him in the position.
And I am surprised from the ill-will of one member of the blog here who suggested that Iraqi’s should kill each other. Is this the message from the west?
Observa said: “What we do know now is that Sunnis and Shiites hate each others guts”
Err, we knew that in the 1980’s mate. It was one of the more compelling reasons for not removing Saddam without a watertight plan of what to do next.
“With all due respect John you would have faced the problem of invading much of Pakistan to do so ”
On the contrary, both OBL and Omar were in Afghanistan and Bush let them get away
“The Democrats … hate America.”
Since the majority of Americans currently support the Democrats, and oppose the Iraq war, it looks as if America-hatred is a pretty big problem.
“On the contrary, both OBL and Omar were in Afghanistan and Bush let them get away”
As I recall Bush wasn’t in Afghanistan at the time to prevent them getting away.
the recent US Senate committee report ( with CIA agreement) essentially said the same thing the 9/11 report. No link between Hussein and AQ. Indeed they go further that the 9/11 report in showing up how much distrust and animosity there was.
CL has never liked such reports as this which is why he ignores them in his fantasy.
Criticise bush and you hate America.
The link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda was originally made by Richard Clarke. OBL was allowed to escape by the Clintnon administration – one of whose officials helpfully telegraphed plans to drop a bomb on him.
I wonder if CL and I saw the same interview with Christopher Hitchens. He reminded us yet again that Abboud Yassin the chemical maker found safe haven in Iraq, and asked us to take his word for it that the Senate Intelligence Committee report-in-progress puts faith in discredited CIA sources. Was there anything more? Certainly nothing he said had the effect of demolishing my scepiticism for all time.
“As I recall Bush wasn’t in Afghanistan at the time to prevent them getting away.”
A good point. And he wasn’t in Vietnam either, so I guess Al Gore and John Kerry can take the blame for that one.
Homer,
Hitchens has some overall complaints about nice Senate office jocks and their 20/20 hindsight reports to management at Lateline here http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2006/s1738468.htm
Personally I have little time for those who believe in the Department for Perfect Outcomes being hypercritical of who missed the opportunity to take out Osama or who let him slip out of their grasp. US Presidents have to be as careful about shooting innocents in railway stations as they do about nailing the villains with missile strikes. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t sometimes. Let’s just say we can all have the odd Ned Kelly problem for a while but sooner or later we’ll get the bastards.
Hitchen’s overall point is one about attacking these bastards with some serious slum clearance. The benefits of slum clearance is not really the issue of disagreement here, but more about which slums were important or a priority. That’s the only argument over Iraq or Afghanistan, although the naysayers on Iraq often have other slums they’d like us to prioritise, like Sudan for instance. For many us 9/11 made the choice easy.
“a scepticism demolished for all time by Hitchens last night on the ABC…”
Not just “demolished” but “demolished for all time”. Good heavens! And what would he have done to our poor scepticism if he were given the “great deal of time” that he required to do a job on such a “half-baked and unfinished piece of work”.
Personally, my scepticism will be on very shaky ground when I read the critiques which tell how the Senate Commitee report “spells people’s names wrong”.
I think you give Christopher Hitchens too much credit. The fact that he criticizes the CIA as the source of the information (basing his criticism primarily on the CIAs other failures) does nothing to bolster the connection between Sadaam and OBL.
I disagreed with the invasion of Iraq. However I don’t think an early exit makes any sence. A failed state in Iraq would aid the enemy, just as a failed state in Afghanistan did. If a partitian can avoid failure then bring it on. However I doubt that it is so simple. Even when Saddam ran the place the USA had to provide air cover for the Kurds. It may be possible to fashion a tolerable retreat but an outright exit does not seem plausible.
I saw Hitchens on Lateline as well. Hitchens’ ‘demolition’ of the Senate Committee’s debunking of the Saddam-Osama link was just Hitchens asserting that the report would be taken apart in a few days.
Apparently in CL’s world wishes really are horses.
Here’s one of the spinoffs of removing Saddam and his funding of terrorist organisations like Hamas http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,20398098-401,00.html?from=public_rss
Petard
1. The “west’s problems�, seen from a different angle:
(1) The problem here is to overcome the unworthy sense of shame that afflicts the leaders of those western nations that truly consider they have the right to intrude on other nations’ sovereign territory.
You are quite right that the sense of shame of those who believe that the rights of nations can be abrogated at will over such tragedies as the Balkans, Sudan, and Rwanda etc is high.
(2) If only they wised up and bought into “our� form of government, aggressive violence against other nations would cease.
No they need to develop a form of government that is suitable for them and does not lead to violent direct action groups that terrorise their populations. All the leaders of AQ have been more effective at damaging their own than in damaging the West.
(3) The “bangs per buck� that can be got by American use of its own military technology has escalated hugely in recent decades. Have a look at the “kill ratio� when the Americans are engaged against civilians, or mixtures of civilians and opposing combatants. In Somalia (1991), it was about 50:1 (i.e., 50 dead Somalis per dead American). In Iraq, it appears to be about the same, if we accept that about 100,000 Iraqis have died dince the invasion. Shades of Vietnam: “Look what they’re doing to us (as we go about killing many times more of them)!!�
Agreed but unimportant. Once you have 10000 nuclear warheads the cost of the next falling by 50% does not matter.
But the ready availability and cheapness of effective weapons to violent direct action groups compared to say 100 or 50 years ago does mean that with limited resources they can now access some very frightening fire power.
(4) What “rights�? What “principles�?
I was thinking of the principle that you should not be punished except through due process and the principle that you should not be subject to violence, the right to free expression of ideas the principle that you should not kill and the right not to be killed.
Observa,
Hussein gave money to families of suicide bombers. Last time I looked this money went into accommodation.
Unless Hamas is now into property development Your statement is untrue.
Palestine is apparently the only place in the world where more people are killed by a country ( Israel) then by terrorists, much more.
CL: despite the Western left’s moral support for Saddam Hussein – whose policies of state terrorism and mass murder they like to think of as “stabilityâ€?.
You are mistaking the Western left for the Western right.
fatfinger
the western left gorged on the gulag’s
Saddam had gulags? Wonders never cease.
fatfingers do you know what Gulags were and where?
If you were a member of the left i would think you were writing yet another history.
Iraq has been interesting in that the Left continue to support Saddam as President yet draw attention to links “proving” Bush support of Saddam as evidence of a conspiracy.
I dont think the Left have any idea at all, they are consumed by the various GWB/neocon conspiracy theories to the point of madness.
“Hussein gave money to families of suicide bombers. Last time I looked this money went into accommodation.
Unless Hamas is now into property development Your statement is untrue.”
What can I say to that logic? Am I off scott free if I pay rewards for killing people into say trust accounts? It’s certainly an interesting outlook on proceeds of crime and following up money trails, for all sorts of crooks and bankrupts.
‘I never put it in his hot little hand yer Honour, honest!’
‘Very well then, case dismissed!’
By the way Homer why did Saddam promise prospective Palestinian suicide bombers who sought Paradise that he’d look after their families here on earth? Yes, yes I know! That’s the nice secular sort of guy he was.
“despite the Western left’s moral support for Saddam Hussein”
That’s funny. I thought I saw Donald Rumsfeld shaking Hussein’s hand in that footage from the early 80s. But maybe you think he wasn’t a butcher then.
I wonder what Rumsfeld (and the political right) said after the gassing of the Kurds! Here’s a clue.
http://www.bowlingforcolumbine.com/library/wonderful/iraq.php
“That’s funny. I thought I saw Donald Rumsfeld shaking Hussein’s hand in that footage from the early 80s.”
Republicans nowadays get their history from the Disney version. In forthcoming episodes, it will be shown that Bill Clinton cleverly impersonated Rumsfeld to set up this famous shot, while Reagan’s aid to Saddam was secretly orchestrated by Jimmy Carter. Meanwhile, back in this universe …
“By the way Homer why did Saddam promise prospective Palestinian suicide bombers who sought Paradise that he’d look after their families here on earth? Yes, yes I know! That’s the nice secular sort of guy he was.”
The reason was to compensate families for the demolition of their houses, which was at the time an automatic outcome under Israel’s collective punishment policies. The effect of Israel’s demolitions was to foster the sort of hatred that recruits suicide bombing, while the small amounts sent from Baghdad made Hussein into some sort of hero among disenfranchised and enraged Arabs everywhere, for very little investment. Compare and contrast the recent upsurge in support for the Party of God in Lebanon with its policy of handing out $10K cash grants to people whose houses have been destroyed by the recent war.
BTW, the Pape Dying to Win study shows that the majority of Palestinian suicide bombers were motivated by secular and not religious factors. Still, I’m sure it gives you comfort to believe them all to be religious fanatics.
It was only post invasion that the Democrats changed their tune, they had previously stated on numerous occasions that Saddam supported terrorists, had WMD and posed a threat that needed to be stopped.
..or maybe Clinton lied (again).
How many members of the immediate family of leaders of Hamas etc etc have been suicide bombers?
How many suicide bombers came from poor families for whom the ‘pension’ earned by suicide is money to live on?
This is not to imply that the suicide bombers are highly motivated.
How does a medium term scenario of Saudi Arabia and Iran being the two regional powers left standing. Iran having the southern part of Iraq
Then what happens?
French and Italian troops become a peace keeping force?
Only if NATO wants more troops to help with the heavy lifting in Afghanistan.
Here is my account of what went wrong in Iraq. The article is called “Wilful Insubordination”.
http://www.libertarian.org.au/blog/readArticle.jsp?articleID=9412291
Extract:-
taust, since you obviously don’t know, gulag is an acronym of Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerei, and they were Russian forced labour camps for (mostly) political prisoners. SH was a bad, bad man, but he didn’t have gulags.
And returning to the actual point, ie it was the right (not the left) who supported SH: he was an integral part of the anti-communist drive by the US right throughout the 1960s and ’70s, he was supported as a secular and Western-oriented bulwark against revolutionary Iran, he was given billions of dollars to keep him from forming an attachment to the USSR, he was favoured by Reagan, and he was praised by Donald Rumsfeld.
You lose.
The left has continued to support Saddam Hussein. Its principals believe he was “unlawfully” removed from power, that he should still be President of Iraq and that his mass murder was a small price to pay for “stability”.
He is now in jail charged with war crimes and genocide.
The Republicans won.