The Arab World Is Heading For Its Own Winter Of Discontent

by Norman Tebbit - May 30th, 2011 - The London Telegraph

Now as I look at what has happened in Iran and Syria, I feel sad. When I look at Iraq, I ask myself what is better for most people there than it was before the allied invasion. The Marsh Arabs in the south and the Kurds in the north may be safer, but Christians are certainly not. A secular and broadly tolerant prosperous middle class has been destroyed, economic development set back, and terrorism has become endemic.

It is too bad that George W. Bush envied Ronald Reagan so much that he refused to take advise from those he saw as aligned with Reagan. Though he loved Blair as the leader of the British people, it is a shame Bush did not spend more time with those who followed the Thatcher side of politics as Tebbit did. He wouldn't because of his resentment of their identity with Reagan. However if Bush had been more mature in his insights he might have avoided one disaster that happened under his leadership.

The brief bio on the article mentions that Lord Tebbit was a senior minister under Thatcher. Tebbit has long been a practical and knowledgeable advisor on the Middle East. His knowledge of terrorism is more personal. He and his wife were buried for hours under the rubble from the Brighton bombing intended to kill Thatcher, and it left his wife paralyzed. Lord Tebbit has few illusions about those who would use terror as a tactic.

Unfortunately George W. Bush has proved to be more gullible. He has wasted thousands of American lives and billions of American dollars seeking a "free democracy" in Iraq and Afghanistan that is never going to happen. We won the war against the evil people in these two countries. We then threw away the victory searching for an ideologically driven end result, nation building, that we never had a chance to make happen.

It is still never going to happen.