I think Clinton was just lucky that he got to be president during the booming phase of the business cycle. Even with that in mind, and adding the Lewinsky scandal for good measure, he was a far better president than Bush is today.
The oil motive to start the Iraq war has some truth to it, but it’s not the whole story. War is always profitable, as Haliburton and its many subcontractors can prove. Also, following 9/11, the public came to perceive all arabs as “the enemy”, and so, it was convenient for politicians to endorse the war. This, I think, was a bigger factor than exploiting Iraq’s oil. Even Hillary Cinton voted for the war! So the democrats share some of the blame for this most calamitous foreign policy error.
As we’ve commented before, we are now in an infinitely worse situation than had Saddam stayed in power. He was a crook and a dictator, but he kept some stability in his country. More importantly, he hated and feared Al Qaeda, feelings that were large reciprocal. If we stay in Iraq now, we’ll further destabilize the country and foster more resentment against the United States, not only in Iraq but in the whole region and beyond. But if we leave, Al Qaeda and Taliban-type fanatics are likely to take over and use Iraq as a launching pad to attack us. What Bush has created is the very definition of a quagmire.
The man deserves no less than impeachment. Cheney and Rumsfeld should be tried for crimes against humanity, and for blatantly deceiving the American public in order to take the country to war for personal gain.
Future generations will find it inconceivable that we let the party of Abraham Lincoln, Ike Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan be hijacked by a band of extremist theo-cons and neo-cons such as the three mentioned above.
