The left is fond of saying that Saddam was no harm to us or anyone else, that we – meaning Bush – should have just left him alone. That would then alow us to muse of what would life in Iraq and the region in general would be like if Saddam was still in power.

Over at Opinion Journal, Peter J. Wallison outlines just how bad that would be.

“Given the problems and U.S. casualties in Iraq, polls show a large majority of the American people believe the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. Yet if we imagine what the world would look like today if Saddam Hussein had not been deposed, it seems clear that almost no outcome in Iraq would be as adverse to the interests of the United States as today’s world with Saddam still in power.

It is important to recall that Saddam had thrown the U.N. weapons inspectors out of Iraq in 1998, and allowed them to return in 2002 only because of the credible threat of a U.S. attack. In addition, the sanctions regime was collapsing–Saddam had learned how to extract billions of dollars for weapons out of the humanitarian exceptions to those sanctions–and our European friends, and perhaps U.N. officials themselves, were complicit in this. Under these circumstances, Saddam could not have been “contained” or rendered harmless, and Iraq could not have been indefinitely subject to U.N. inspections. At some point, Saddam would have been able to throw out the inspectors again, with no further action by the U.N. It was clear that the U.N. itself would do nothing to enforce its own resolutions.

We also know from the reports of the weapons inspectors that Saddam and his scientists were working to develop nuclear weapons, work that certainly would have continued if Saddam had remained in place. Saddam had already demonstrated that he would use chemical weapons, and there is no reason in logic that he wouldn’t also restore his chemical weapons stocks once the inspectors had left. He had the largest army in the region, and had shown a determination to use it for expanding his control beyond Iraq. It’s not far-fetched, therefore, to consider what economists call a counterfactual–what things would look like today if the U.S. had not invaded Iraq.”

Where the Bush administration messed up is in not adequately explaining the geopolitical – and long overdue I might add – need to deal with Saddam. Forget the WMD, Saddam had to go and all the world knew it. Again, although the left has selective amnesia about it, the fact is that there was nary a Democrat to be found who didn’t publically say Saddam shouldn’t go. In fact there wasn’t a democrat would didn’t say that Saddam was a tyrant bent on developing WMD.

You can bet that if the war gone better up to this point Democrats would be at the the microphones trying to tell us how it was really all their idea and Bush stole it.

I have frequently pointed out that there are two phases to this war. The first phase ended when Saddam was toppled in a magnificant military campaign that will go down in history as one of the greatest ever. That’s the war Bush referred to when he stood on an aircraft carrier and announced mission accomplished.

Only that the second half had gone as well, but again it depends on who you ask. In five years Saddam has been removed and eliminated, a new – howbeit tenuous – government has been instituted, and unless we pull out and abandon them, they will eventually thrive.

History will be kind to George Bush for in the future as Iraq settles down they will be able to look back and see the difference made between what they had under Saddam and what they will eventually enjoy.

That is unless Democrats succeed in pulling out the troops and thus create another Cambodia. You can be sure that they won’t take any more credit for that than they did in 1975, because that is precisely who they are – moral cowards.