A couple of hard-to-argue observations:

1. Bush removed Saddam
2. Saddam was the force that kept extremism down
3. The entire region is worse off than before Bush invaded

The lesson is elegant in its simplicity:

Any that any country that still has a dictator is, by definition, not ready to have it removed for them.

When we forget this, bad and unexpected things happen. The current incarnation of this is ISIS, which simply would not have been possible in Saddam’s Iraq.

Notes

1. My thoughts on Bush’s morality.
2. I did actually create the caption for this post. I’m not just hosting it for no reason.
3. @marginal_error opines that this is quite symmetrical, since we created Saddam.