Originally Posted by Graham

I think it's astonishing to think that the US is still so pig-headed that they appeared to think that they could just stroll in there, kick over Saddam's regime and then expect everyone to go "Hooray, let's have a Western Democracy!"

There are so many examples from recent history that demonstrate that this sort of thing just *doesn't* happen and *doesn't* work, yet still the US is guilty of over-weaning arrogance that military might solves everything.

The fact is that they, and we, went into Iraq with no clear "exit strategy". The US thought they could do it all themselves, they didn't need the UN, they didn't need to worry about what would happen next because once they'd got rid of Saddam everything would be hugs and puppies.

Of course anyone who bothered to *think* about the situation would realise how wrong this conclusion is and the response would be "thanks for getting rid of Saddam, now get out of here and let us run our own country", but it seems that that sort of thought was not part of Dubya and friends' plan.