Was Bush (indirectly) right about Iraq?

Former U.S. President George W. Bush was wrong about many things. His administration wrongly believed Iraq possessed unconventional chemical and biological weapons. President Bush and his advisers also made a wrong call in connecting the 9/11 hijackers — who were primarily Saudi Islamic militants — to the Iraqi government. In fact, the previous U.S. administration seemed to mess up almost everything it attempted. A lack of oversight in the financial world contributed to the mess the American economy is currently in. Unrestrained spending over eight years pushed the U.S. into heavy debt. A bungled response to Hurricane Katrina cost far too many American lives and dented America's reputation. But could it be that when historians sit down to debate the Bush presidency decades from now, their main focus will be to praise the former president for ordering an invasion that indirectly transformed the entire Middle East?

To be fair to George W. Bush's detractors, the stated mission of the Iraq invasion was to find and destroy weapons of mass destruction (WMD). These weapons turned out to be fiction. It is not unfair to say that after it became clear that no such unconventional weaponry existed in Iraq, former President Bush pivoted away from WMDs as a justification for the invasion and begin to emphasize building democracy in the Middle East instead. The former president's supporters will claim that regime change and bringing democracy to Iraq was always part of the reasoning behind toppling Saddam Hussein while Democrats and others will point to this after-the-fact justification with cynicism. Regardless of this debate, however, one less debatable fact is emerging: Iraq is ever so slowly becoming a democratic country. This is not to claim that Iraq has blossomed into a paradise of freedom where rights are respected and people no longer live in fear. Today the situation is still quite tumultuous. Bombings are still killing scores of people, kidnapping militias still prowl the streets and many of Iraq's leaders are so corrupt that they make a mockery of the very concept of government. But despite all of these negatives, shoots of democratic growth are being seen.

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