Western invasion paved way for Iraq's terror crisis

SMH

Over 11 years ago we entered a war of choice on a pretext that was always dubious and proved ultimately false. There are several reasons we did this: a messianic belief in the democratisation of the Middle East; a desire to project Western power and install a compliant ruler in Saddam Hussein’s place; in Australia’s case, pursuing the US alliance. 

But beneath them all lies one essential conceit: we did this because we thought we could. Perhaps some of our soldiers, and multiples more Iraqi civilians would die, but we figured that would be the limit of the fallout. At the very least we assumed our power would be enhanced. At our most delirious we might have believed we’d leave the world a better place.

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