re: Thoughts on the Russian Mess from a non republican

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It's a fricking historical counterfactual. You can't ask for "evidence." That's not how this works.

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You haven't provide any supporting evidence that suggests your scenario was probable to occur. That is what was and continues to be lacking.

Even in the scenario of a failed state, the idea that the result would look near identical to what Bush created seems to be a less probable scenario out of the numerous ones possible. For one the regular Army was respected and revered. Considered by scholars internally and externally and by the CIA and State department as a symbol of unity. Country above sectarian differences. And it was relatively well trained and equipped all things considered. Thats why its disbandment had such an enormous effect on public opinion toward our presence.

Plus this sort of logic you are operating under, that "a failed state was inevitable eventually so get the medicine down now" is pretty problematic. If that is the operating rationale then at least a dozen states were in more critical positions then Iraq. Including several already failed ones. Ones that were in the process of fostering terrorists already.

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You're being absurdly naive. You can argue that de-Baathification was botched, but in no way could you hand over democratic power to a majority-Shia nation without de-Baathification happening in some form. This belief that everybody in Iraq was ready to get along fine with the old army structure is preposterous. It would have never worked.

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I already said reform needed to take place. The problem was that Bush signed off on an initial plan. Based on a prior assumption that after the invasion, most of the government employees would remain because it was the only way to keep much of the country running. And because we did not and would under any scenario have the resources to take on that enormous endeavor wholesale. The plan signed off on initially was one that took out the senior leadership and Saddam loyalists. The CIA and State department called it De-Saddamification. The top 1% of the party would be purged and the rest of the party would be vetted through a truth and reconciliation process(though even this was still flawed for several reasons).

Bremer, without consultation, through the advisement of the corrupt political opportunist Ahmad Chalabi, using the recently approved authority by Bush to bypass the chain of command approval process for most decisions, decided to go much deeper in the purge then authorized. He hatchets all 4 levels of the Baath party instead. Which meant doctors, teachers, low level technocrats and tens of thousands of other people that only were Baathists due to the requirements to be in the party to get a government job were now fired and told they could no longer work for the government.

Your position is seemingly to defend Bremer, a guy who I should note admittedly was almost entirely ignorant of the Iraqi institutional structure and made this decision based primarily off the advice of a corrupt Shia political opportunist that was simply trying to angle his way to being appointed the country's leader and believed minimizing the Sunni presence in the future government was a high priority. Who himself has since admitted it was a bad decision.

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bullshite. Nobody believes this.

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Nobody believes what? Facts? You don't have to like facts but they will remain facts whether you like them or not.

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Following the passage of Resolution 1441, on 18 November 2002, weapons inspectors of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission returned to Iraq for the first time since being withdrawn by the United Nations. Whether Iraq actually had weapons of mass destruction or not was being investigated by Hans Blix, head of the Commission, and Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Inspectors remained in the country until they withdrew after being notified of the imminent invasion by the United States, Britain, and two other countries.

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UN Chief Inspector Hans Blix, on 14 February 2003, presented a report to the Security Council. Blix gave an update of the situation in Iraq, and he stated that the Iraqis were now more proactive in their cooperation. He also rebutted some of the arguments proposed by Powell. Blix questioned the interpretations of the satellite images put forward by Powell, and stated that alternate interpretations of the satellite images were credible. He also stated that the Iraqis have in fact never received early warning of the inspectors visiting any sites (an allegation made by Powell during his presentation). International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohammed ElBaradei also said that he did not believe the Iraqis have a nuclear weapons program, unlike what Powell had claimed.

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This is not to say that the operation of inspections is free from frictions, but at this juncture we are able to perform professional, no-notice inspections all over Iraq and to increase aerial surveillance.

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You can see that as the pressure mounted, Iraq became totally cooperative. Post war analysis concluded Saddam was initially balancing a sense of need to project strength to his oppressed people and regional adversaries but not enough to get overthrown by America. That he didn't pursue WMD proliferation and if he had wanted to, the sanctions had made that investment near impossible. He felt early on that Bush would just bomb like usual and leave him alone, so he could keep the facade up. Once he felt it would be worse he rushed to allow inspectors in and only initially tried to put up some fight, but as it went on he clearly was more concerned with preventing invasion then projecting the illusion of weapons strength.

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Nice switch of words there. It wasn't based on "imminent nuclear proliferation." As I say over and over and over again, it was about preventing the collapse of regional system of non-proliferation.

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Again, the Hans Blix situation throws cold water on this.

And the stated rationales were clear and multiple:

- Al Qaeda/9/11/Saddam links. Proven false
- Bush Doctrine defined pre-emption of Saddam supposedly targeting the US militarily. Proven false
- Accelerating nuclear and WMD proliferation against international law and refusing to cooperate with UN inspectors. See above
- Garden Democracy theory that a more liberal democracy would increase security and hegemonic strength. This seemed more internal and only rarely argued publicly. Maybe could of had some merits had Bush and company not so royally fricked up.