I’m just going to piggy-back on CD’s post below with some links to provide some historical perspective on how we created the monster that was Saddam Hussein.

If you want some valuable perspective on how we created Saddam, go here. If you want all of this in video form, go here.

If you wish to know just how stupidly we botched his trial, go here. (Click the ad, the article is worth it.)

I actually cover all of this in my 100-level historical survey class these days. I also discuss how we helped to create al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden — both of these things following the glorious Cold War playbook.

You ought to see the look of surprise on the faces of the 18 and 19-year-olds. One of them will usually interrupt me and say something like “You’re kidding, right? We didn’t really do this, did we? Doesn’t all of this mean that we’re at least partially responsible for both of them?”

My response is always something like “We are responsible for Saddam. We created him. He is our monster. Osama it’s a little more complicated. Both are cases of blowback but you all should learn that a ’good versus evil’ foreign policy almost always leads to some unintended horrific consequences that you didn’t foresee. That’s why the world is a much more complicated place than our presidents tell us it is.”

These links are courtesy of the invaluable Juan Cole.