"We Must Thank Bush for shaking up the Arab region"

"... These questions must contend with the powerful image of US defeat in Iraq promoted by partisan politics in the Washington. The troop surge of 2007 was opposed on partisan grounds: Hillary Clinton, the recently retired Secretary of State, her successor John Kerry, and Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, and Obama himself were all against any attempt to rescue Iraq – and with it Bush’s reputation.  When Pelosi visited Damascus in 2007, it was less out of love for Assad and more to spite Bush. The Obama administration invested political capital in engagement with Assad to prove that the Bush strategy in Iraq had been wrong. They invested so much that calling for regime change in Syria would now appear to vindicate Bush. US indecision is not only proving costly to Syria, but also to US allies such as Turkey and the Gulf states. ...Did the fall of Saddam break the myth about the power of such dictatorships? It is not unrealistic to think that Saddam’s trial could have planted the idea that dictators may face a reckoning in the end. ..."