W's Legacy Finds It's Footing

I've never been a big George W. Bush fan. He always appeared to be a puppet of those who he surrounded himself with. His dad's buddies filled the important positions in government, especially in offices of the State and Defense Departments. He never seemed to have the intellect to undertand the compexities of the geopolitical world. Nice guy. Kind of a good ol' boy who would seem right at home at the neighborhood country bar, drinking a Budweiser and talking about NASCAR.

My bigger problem with him in the early days, was that he seemed eager to go after Saddam Hussein, the thug who apparently had planned an assassination attempt on Bush's father when he visited the Middle East some years before. When he decided we would fight the war on terror on Iraqi soil, I protested that we were chasing the wrong enemy. We knew who was behind the 9/11 attacks, and it wasn't Saddam Hussein. Why were we letting Bin Laden off the hook? I still have questions about this today, and I still feel vengeance had something to do with it.

But today, as I watch the unfolding drama in Iran, I find myself looking back at the Bush agenda in the Middle East. Remove a vicious dictator, and bring freedom and democracy to the people of Iraq. For the most part this has been successful. Although things remain shaky on the ground in Iraq, who can forget the purple fingers jutting in the air as millions of Iraqi's went to the polls? The scene was witnessed by billions of us around the world. As a result, we have seen significant change around the region. In Libya, Ghaddafi has become a legitimate player and brought his nation into the 21st century. Hezbollah is struggling to maintain support in Lebanon, and the Syrians have gone home altogether.

Well, guess who's been watching all this? The Iranian people. And they have decided they want some. It's going to be a tough road for them, but they are on the march. And I find myself looking back and realizing that this is what Bush was looking for when he took after Saddam. A platform. Somewhere for freedom to take wings in this part of the world. Freedom is a concept, not something you can hold in your hand. It's something that grows in your heart, and the Iranians are telling the rest of the world that their hearts are bursting.