It's as contentious as the russian invasion of ukraine is. Meaning, not at all unless you fall for the obvious war justifying rhetoric.
I dont know why but it seems like there's been such a weird push for rehabilitating what the US and it's allies did to the middle east since the start of the russian war of aggression against ukraine.
The situation in Iraq is tough but no, I don’t think it’s obvious to me it would be better off still under Saddam Hussein, or maybe by now one of his sons. If you wonder what a dynastic succession like that can look like, check out Syria, and the young Assad is a pusseycat compared to Uday or Qusay.
There was no dynastic succession in syria, if anything the baathist regime shows how weirdly resilient it is even when faced with insane pressure. Keep in mind the iraqi baathist party was much more popular in iraq that assad is in syria. Also, no matter how violent a hypothetical baathist succession crisis would be, it would not have come close to what happened due to the invasion.
If anything, the iraqi war was the reason the syrian civil war was so bloody. The al qaida elements in iraq overtook the grass root rebellion in syria, and ISIS would literally have not existed if Saddam was still in power. Same for the sectarian violence that will plague iraq for decades to come.
Saddam absolutely deserved the rope, but that does not mean the US had any right to intervene because of that. Plus, the reason the US invaded had officially nothing to do with regime change. The "saving iraq from it's dictator" narrative only came after the WMD lies became evident.
> The "saving iraq from it's dictator" narrative only came after the WMD lies became evident.
True, none of which can be laid at the feet of the British army. I’m no fan of Blair but I’m not sure to what extent he knew it was all flimflam either.
Invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a different matter. At that point, Iraq didn't have WMD, and wasn't harbouring Al Qaeda, so the invasion was unjustified.