It was not just the USA which was stunned by the events of September 11th, the whole world was. Crucially, there was near universal sympathy for America and condemnation for a cowardly attack on defenseless civilians. Islamic countries, no less than western countries, saw Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden as terrorists not as heroes. The genius of President G.W.Bush and his neo-con henchmen has been to squander this goodwill and turn it into indifference, if not outright antipathy, to what the USA is doing.

Afghanistan was the training ground of Bin Laden and at first it seemed that President Bush was going to make that the focus of his war on terror. The Taliban were driven out, to almost universal approval, and Bin Laden went on the run. His ability to threaten the USA or other western countries was severely damaged, even though he remained at large. Other Moslem countries were pleased to see the back of the extremist Taliban and their bizarre interpretation of Islam.

It was at this point that President Bush seemingly took leave of his senses and determined to depose Saddam Hussein. Iraq played no part in the planning or implementation of the September 11th attacks. Iraq was a potential counter balance to Iran, with whom it had been at war in the 1980s. Iraq was no friend of Bin Laden.
Whilst Saddam's regime was odious and his continuance in power was galling to those who had driven him out of Kuwait, he posed no serious threat to the USA or Europe.
Both northern and southern Iraq had effectively policed 'no-fly zones' in place and economic sanctions limited the scope for massive spending on weapons.

The neocon White House view of the 21st century seemed to be that the USA had won the Cold War, was the only Super-power and was strong enough to do as it pleased, regardless of what the rest of the planet thought. Even more importantly, the rest of the world wanted to be like the USA. How natural then, to invade Iraq, depose Saddam and stand back as grateful Iraqis queued up for apple pie and a burger!

To the Moslem world, the invasion of Iraq looked like a Christian country making war on a Moslem country. It revived memories of the Crusades of the Middle Ages. Though they did not like Saddam, they did not wish to see his country invaded by Christians. In the FIRST Gulf War, President George Bush senior had understood that invading Iraq would destroy the support of the coalition of Arab states which helped liberate Kuwait and drive Iraqi forces

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