The Baathist party and leaders around the Arab world were brutal but secular. They kept the radicals in line. With the Arab Spring the stability that was in place was gone and the rest is recent history. Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians and the like are being persecuted and forced from their home lands.

I could swear he managed to survive past 1/20/09.

There's always Lebanon, I guess. Then again, with all the turmoil, who knows what Hezbollah will do with the influx of money that, apparently, Bush II will allow Iran to rake in. They'll certainly have to balance their loss of prestige in a de-Assadized Syria. Nasty of Bush II to get rid of Assad like that and back a protest movement that could destabilize but not overthrow and assert control. Not that anybody seriously thought they could, not with just the relatively small number of secular educated young Sunnis in the urban centers. Nobody thought about the rest of the country when Bush II was speaking out using the bully pulpit in early 2011. Odd, that. Perhaps he lost the 2012 election? Or maybe that wasn't Bush II.

That leaves Palestine. A lot of Xians have fled there, too. Although they're okay in Israel. Odd, that.

Not many Jews left in Arab countries. The enlightened self-interest from the late '40s and '50s--known as "running for your life"--saw to that.

History will be very harsh on our strategy in the Middle east. I suspect that what happened in Iraq will be considered an atrocity by future generations (if they are still alive).

I just know that the ancient Jewish and Christian communities in the MidEast especially Iraq are nearly destroyed. Saddam even had a Christian high up in his admin, but he died incarcerated, Tariq Aziz an ethnic Assyrian, not even and Arab, and a member of the Chaldean Catholic Church, not even an evil Muslim.

Colin Powell had it right with the Pottery Barn metaphor, well sort of, Bush broke the MidEast and we own it.

Our own constitution enshrines minority rights, not democracy. The right wants to focus on "Democracy" rather than minority rights because bourgeois capitalism works best with the facade of legitimacy provided by elections that bring a tyrannical majority to power. Where would you rather live, under a dictator who protects minority rights, or under the tyranny of a self righteous democratic majority?

And you are incredibly aware: Many seem to think that visiting violence on other peoples against their wishes is "helping them". Destroying people's lives and futures in the hope of somehow making it better later.

"Righteous" causes are often just prejudice in disguise. And the west has become exceedingly adept at such Machievelian thinking.

"Gee, who could have predicted this?"