Situation of Iraq and Libya made me say that some parts of world need monarchy/dictatorship to avoid anarchy
I never thought I’d say this — but the rise of ISIS, collapse of Libya and disintegration of Yemen have made me miss someone.
I miss Saddam.
I miss the iron-fisted rule of his that kept Iraq in one piece.
I miss his seasoned army acting as a counterweight to Iran.
I miss him being the kind of dictator who, despite his anti-American venom, knew how to keep a boot on terrorist groups he saw as a threat.
I miss Saddam Hussein.
And I miss Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, too.
As bad as Gaddafi was, some things happening in Libya are worse.
I know this opens me up to charges of supporting dictatorship and even state terrorism.
Saddam was known for giving money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. And for gassing some of his own people. And keeping down the Shiite population. And invading Kuwait without provocation and kicking off wars with Iran.
Gaddafi, of course, was implicated in the horrific bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. His secret service was accused of a discotheque bombing in Berlin that killed two U.S. soldiers and injured 79 others.
These weren’t just imperfect leaders — they were brutal dictators who stirred up hatred against us. So things were hardly serene when they ruled.
But compared to now — I miss them.
You need them to hold together fractious nations and avoid anarchy.
More than we realized, Saddam and Gaddafi were a bulwark against things worse than their own awful regimes — a Middle East that's splintering and the creation of ISIS.
The truth is, there was a wisdom behind their brutality. They seemed to know it was needed to avoid that splintering.
We failed to see that Saddam wasn't just suppressing people yearning to breathe free — he was keeping a lid on vicious tribal hatreds that went back hundreds of years.
It wasn't a vacuum right away, but ISIS was patient. They waited as we poured billions into a failed attempt to rebuild the Iraqi army. They watched as Iraq's new Shiite-led government alienated Sunnis to a point that they became fertile ground ISIS could exploit. Then they saw their chance and rushed into it — first Fallujah, then the huge city of Mosul, shredding Iraq's army like paper and taking back territory that thousands of U.S. troops had given their lives for.
It's doubtful ISIS could have done that if Saddam was in power.
And now ISIS is in Libya, too, beheading ppl there, because the strongman Gaddafi is gone.
I realize this argument can't apply everywhere and even in the Middle East, the argument is complicated — there is still a brutal dictator in Syria, yet he wasn't able to suppress the beginnings of ISIS. Similarly, Gaddafi’s fall was part of the Arab Spring, not American military intervention.
And now it's happening in Yemen, too.
But in both places, we are seeing the dangers of a vacuum in places where centuries of tribal hatreds once simmered beneath an iron hand
The world's greatest military may well be able to defeat dictators — but not always the extremism that bubbles up after their downfall.
And sometimes, those forces are worse.
Which is why I now say of dictators like Gaddafi and Saddam:
I miss them.
