Family Security Matters- The Arab Spring – Bush’s Fault?

Family Security Matters: It may just be that the Arab spring, with all its death, destruction, pain and injury, heralds the initial blooming of a unique new feature amongst the Arab peoples - the birth pains of spreading democracy. If so, this must surely be due in large part to the influence of the first democratic elections to be held in the modern Arab world, those held in Iraq on January 30, 2005. Those elections were a direct result of the US-led invasion of Iraq, for which President George W. Bush bears by far the largest responsibility.

Having retired from the British Army in early 2003, I was in Baghdad later that year, and over most of the next 2 years, working in the civilian component of the Coalition Provision Authority. I was fortunate that I had an introduction to an Iraqi family through a good friend in Britain, an ex-patriate Iraqi married to a British friend. She asked me to visit her mother and sister while I was in Baghdad, the beginning of another strong friendship which gave me a unique perspective on much of what was going on at the time in Iraq.

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