It is amazing how after a few years of lying low and really not trying to instigate too much, how the perspective on Middle Eastern leaders can change.

It used to be that Qaddafi was one of the loudest critics of the United States and needed to be taken out, while it “may” be true that we stuck a missile or two up his nose made him realize that we meant business, he finally got the point.

So he kept quiet, and merely continued to keep his own people under the boot of repression instead of trying to be a unitary figure for the Arabic world.

Now he goes to France, which is usually the first to capitulate to anyones demands, a look at their “distinguished” military history is proof of that.  Though it must be said that at least one Frenchman has shown signs of formulating spinal tissue.

Rama Yade the French Secretary of State for Human Rights, said, “Colonel Qaddafi must understand that our country is not a doormat for which any leader, terrorist or not, can come to wipe the blood of his crimes off his feet.”  I wonder if Rama is really British?

So we see the truly great mishap that was the judgment of Saddam Huissen, he could have just done what he was told laid low, and everything would have blown over, instead of blowing up.

We would still have a military to threaten Iran with, as well as the intelligence community not needing to publish its reports the same time that the President receives them.   So the carrot and stick approach may indeed have had a chance to succeed.

Bin Laden may have been found, and the Taliban eradicated, Pakistan attempting to work out their political differences in a more mild mannered approach, what with the very large and very victorious US army ready to rid the tribal lands of their unlawful opium activities.

What a world it could have been, Congress would have remained in Republican hands, and a Constitutional Ban on Gay Marriage could have been passed along with the repeal of the 22nd amendment abolishing Presidential terms.

Bush could have been our Lord and Savior, while Mt. Rushmore was refurbished to show the faces of Reagan, and his holy prophet George W the Second.  Taxes low, oil still high, corporate greed seen as the salvation of our sins.

Oh to be in that world.  Where creativity is limited to smear campaigns and half spoken truths, we have not ourselves to blame, but that evil Saddam, for performing the Qaddafi Duck.