I dont think its romanticizing Bush to acknowledge that he wasnt as hateful and destructive as Trump
Its perspective
Not as destructive? Bruh the Iraq War, literally one of the most destructive things to happen to the Middle East in the modern age.
I don't know how old you are or if you remember post 9/11 america. But was a different time. Im not necessarily defending Bush, but don't sit here and play monday morning quarterback 15 years later and act like you knew the best course of action at the time. No one did.
And the middle east has been a disaster since the second world war. No, the Iraq war didn't help, but things were sour long before 2003.
Literally everyone knew Osama Bin Laden had nothing to do with Iraq, that Iraq had no WMDs, and that it was a huge scam to get oil money.
Even the rednecks I knew couldn't claim ignorance because I made sure to tell them.
That's bs. No one knew that until after we were there. You can go down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole that the administration lied about the reports but that's pretty silly, they couldn't have been naive enough to ignore that, that was gonna blow up in their face. But whatever, believe what you want
Like, everyone knew Bin Laden was in Afghanistan. ---