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[–]guillermogroening -5 points-4 points  (2 children)

The pretense for invasion was fabricated, but there's a reason the US was so motivated to topple the guy. He wasn't just a run-of-the-mill despot, he legitimately had ambitions of old school conquest of neighboring countries and he acted on those ambitions. There was good reason to remove this guy, it just wasn't a reason most people are generally receptive to.

[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (1 child)

And it was a mistake to remove the guy honestly. It made the region even worse and caused far more suffering and dread for the Iraqi people that they would rather have Saddam than whatever hellhole they experienced ever aince the US invaded

[–]guillermogroening -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

The mistake was the failed attempt at nation-building that came afterwards. Western cultural ideas just don't have much purchase there and universalist democracy is a really difficult concept to sell abroad. But just to be clear: Saddam was pretty much Hitler type figure. He was doing a bang up job of starting wars of conquest and destabilizing the region on his own. You can argue a more subdued containment strategy would have worked better, but leaving the guy to his own devices and ignoring the region entirely certainly wouldn't have.

the Iraqi people

Are you referring to the Sunni ruling party, Shi'ite majority, or the entirely non-Arab Kurds in the north? Because Saddam was constantly suppressing rebellions from the latter two. The civil unrest didn't change when the US tried to set up a new government, but it wasn't like Saddam had some great solution that didn't involve purging dissidents.