[Heisenberg]

It seems to me that "the Iraq war changed nothing" is a pretty stupid argument in favour of something that directly caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, triggered a chain reaction of uprisings and civil wars in the Middle East, and cost the US and the UK about $2.4trn.

It either changed things, or it didn't. If it didn't change anything, it was a complete waste of time, money, manpower and lives. If it did change things, you have to demonstrate how it changed them for the better. Given the current state of the Middle East, that will require your trademark creative interpretation of the facts.

You can't have it both ways.

As for the OP, I think @layman is pretty much right. Gordon Brown is a decent man who was wholly unfit to be prime minister. I never joined in with the obsessive hatred directed towards him in 2010, which I suspect was misdirected rage towards the grin-based organism that somehow had conned the public for 10 years.

[B0ycey]

A Bolshevik one, actually. Marx would have approved it as a progressive thing, but he wouldn't have agreed on the weakest link idea with Lenin. And he would've been right, of course.

Actually, this is how I see things. There is no doubt he would have approved of the 'actually revolution', but I'd like to think he would have distanced himself from the Bolsheviks. Maybe even challenged them to prevent them from just ceasing power and start a true Communist state.

[Potemkin]

Nothing, I repeat nothing changed in May 2003 in terms of the stability of the Middle East. The fundamental instability, brutality, repression and intermittent civil and interstate wars has not changed since the end of WWII. In fact its been there since the dissolution of the Ottoman empire and can even be seen prior to the first world war.

Indeed, and the need to suppress this chaos is the main reason why the regimes of that region, no matter what their ideological complexion, tend to be brutal dictatorships which rule by terror and torture. Saddam was an evil sonofabitch, but he was at least keeping a lid on the pressure cooker of Iraqi society. In 2003, the West took that lid off....

[Rich]

It seems to me that "the Iraq war changed nothing"

Oh it dramatically shifted the balance of power between Twelver Shia and Sunni's in the Shia's favour. Its in our vital interest to support the minority lesser evil Shia at the expense of the more evil majority Sunnis.

Proposition: Muslims are a problem.
Response: There's a billion and half Muslims they can't be a problem.
Retort: The fact that there's a billion and half (and breeding rapidly) of them means they are a really big problem. Hitler wouldn't have been a problem if he's been leader of El Salvador.

It just didn't change anything tin terms of stability and peace. There is not going to be a final solution to the Muslim problem any time soon. Obliviously those that pretend there is no Muslim problem, will find the policies of those who understand there is, incomprehensible.

[Heisenberg]

Oh it dramatically shifted the balance of power between Twelver Shia and Sunni's in the Shia's favour. Its in our vital interest to support the minority lesser evil Shia at the expense of the more evil majority Sunnis.

Oh, of course. That must be why we are such close allies with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Qatar, and do everything we can to marginalise Iran - because we're trying to tip the balance of power in favour of the Shia.

[AFAIK]

There is a widespread view now that the 2003 invasion was a mistake.

Most people view it as a crime rather than a mistake, that's why Blair is told to go to the Hague every time he shows his face in public.

[Decky]

Calvinism is in his bloodstream, in his DNA. This is why he formed the delusion that he was one of The Elect of God, one of the small minority of humanity who have been saved by their faith and are righteous in the eyes of the Lord. It is this sense of predestined greatness which drove him to try to become Prime Minister with such fanatical monomania, and why he would respond with such snarling fury to anyone or anything which stood in his way. Did they not realise that God had destined him to be Prime Minister? How dare they challenge the will of God?! Of course, once he actually achieved his 'destiny' of becoming Prime Minister, he quickly realised that he wasn't right for the job - his abrasive personality, his intellectual arrogance, his willingness to compromise his political principles for a shot at power, all of these factors came together in a perfect storm of public hostility and derision. He came to the terrible realisation that, in fact, God had not purposed him to be Prime Minister after all, and that he had based his whole life on a narcissistic delusion.

I wouldn't usually defend Brown but even with his personality being... as it was. It probably would have gone better for him if Blair had given him the leadership after 10 years as he allegedly promised. Brown only got leadership of New Labour at the point Blair had already stained the brand beyond recovery and the whole nation hated them.

[Potemkin]

I wouldn't usually defend Brown but even with his personality being... as it was. It probably would have gone better for him if Blair had given him the leadership after 10 years as he allegedly promised. Brown only got leadership of New Labour at the point Blair had already stained the brand beyond recovery and the whole nation hated them.

Granted, he was dealt a bad hand, but if he had indeed been 'destined' to be Prime Minister, he should have been able to take it in his stride, no? Brown simply lacked the charisma or the social skills to function effectively as a Prime Minister. He had spent his whole life chasing after a job he was totally unsuited for, and then messed it up once he got it.