Would I have ordered Iraq invaded?
Well, if we had finished the job in 1991-92, saved the hundreds of thousands of Shia that died during the uprising we fostered and then didn’t support, why sure. We wouldn’t know we had saved their lives, of course, but it was the right thing to do, then and *not* put the word of the United States into a situation where it could be so harshly devalued that guys like bin Laden could point to our unwilling to finish a job as a weakness.
Along that line of thought, I don’t think HW Bush had a real good handle on the affair and would have botched the post-war and then Clinton would get elected to try and figure it out… which would have occupied his time no end, and so keep a raft of poor first term decisions from going on. Clinton would schmooze his way to getting things going, be seen as salvaging Iraq and, generally, had problems getting enough time to do fun things in Somalia, Kosovo and elsewhere because he would have had his hands full.
So, yes, I do support the decision and support the word of the Head of State who is the President in foreign affairs, especially during armed conflicts and wars. It would have been done faster, cheaper, with fewer lives lost and nipped a lot of terrorist training in the bud, plus WMD proliferation by Saddam to al Qaeda. We wouldn’t know that, in that time line, but we probably would have seen far fewer attacks by al Qaeda as they were not set up with funds or manpower to do much of anything in ’91-92. Iran was likewise pretty exhausted after the Iran-Iraq war.
Yes, indeed, I do support the decision to hold a war time leader to his agreements made to get a mere cease fire, and withdrawing the cease fire when he first abrogates them. That would have finished things off pretty quickly and we would be over and done with it by now.
