Why is that 9-11 comes to mind, evn? When that happened, things changed. It's not magic or anything like that. He didn't flip-flop. The world just changed.
The world didn't change it just hit the US on the nose. The argument that Iraq supported terrorist groups involved them supporting them prior to 9/11. Saddam Hussein represented the same threat to the US both pre-9/11 and post-9/11 probably less post 9/11 since that reversed the decrease of military expenditures brought about by the end of the Cold War. It also gave Bush an excuse to implement things such as the Patriot Act which even if you may disagree with it, it does do some good. Nor would there be a Department of Homeland Security or increased security in airports etc. etc. The only difference was Bush needed something to do so he could look strong instead of Clinton's policy of bombing Iraq every once in a while.
But one does wonder, were it not for 9/11 what would Bush have done with those 4 years? Would he have invaded Iraq? Wasted his time and killed the US economy? Not gotten re-elected in '04? I'm voting for the last two and possibly all three.
September 11 was a godsend for bush. WIthout it he would have done nothing and gone down as one of those obscure presidents who didn't do anything bad or anyting good or anything at all (just like Van Buren)
Probably would have been better than what he's doing right now. I like him and all, but I don't agree with the whole Iraq situation (I do say we can't pull out until they have a government and an army though). Personally, I think Iran and North Korea deserve more attention.
