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Originally Posted by transplant99
I would bet it's much more along the lines of he doesn't want to get dragged into a comparison of administrations....his was not exactly held up as one to emulate either.
Besides, like it or not, it is rather unusual for past Presidents to criticize sitting Presidents. Look at Bush Sr and Clinton, they have joined together to bring relief to the tsunami and NO victims. Thats more along the lines of what kind of public prescence former heads of state should be doing...not criticizing current administrations.
I guess Nixon should have clobbered Carter during his tenure over the whole Iran hostage fiasco....but he didnt. He showed the respect that only guys who have done the job could have for the office and the difficulty there-in.
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There's a huge difference between the Iran hostage fiasco and Iraq. The Iran situation developed over many years of American meddling only to land on Carter's lap. He didn't handle it well, I guess and the States suffered a big loss of status but he didn't cause the problem, he inherited it.
Iraq is another ball of wax. Saddam was an irritant but hardly a threat to the USA and Bush took advantage of the 9/11 scare to invade. He took a good will towards America situation which he could have used to bring Osama and his ilk to bay, instead he brought the USA to become maybe, the most hated nation in the world. Not exactly leading his country in spreading world peace and democracy. Peace and democracy isn't spread by causing more wars it's spread by example. A slow process, I admit but petty leaders, like Bush have been trying their way for thousands of years and it just doesn't work.
Having said all that, I'm not against wars fought in self defence such as WWII or even Afghanistan.