If Bush had stayed humble after 911...

"In 2003, Vice President Cheney advised the president to take out Iraq's Saddam Hussein militarily. But Bush was beginning to understand that his veep, while sounding full of gravitas, was in fact reckless. When it became clear that Saddam posed no imminent threat, Bush resolved to neuter him, Kaddafi style. When the president found, after a little asking around, that the 10-year cost of invading Iraq would be a crushing $1.2 trillion, he opted out of this war of choice."

Confused? You should be. This was not how it happened at all. As we all know, Bush did invade Iraq as a follow up to his war against terrorism and that has now brought upon a very volatile situation in the world.

The above paragraph is an alternative look into history by journalist Jonathan Alter in the latest Newsweek magazine. In his article, Alter ponders how the world will be today if Bush had taken a totally different step after the Sept 11 attacks in the US in 2001.

Alter concludes his interesting article by saying:

"Five years after that awful September day, even Bush's fiercest critics have learned an important lesson: leadership counts. Imagine if we'd done the opposite of these things. This country—and the world—would be in a heap of trouble."

How we wish the alternate view was the mainstream policy indeed!

Read the truly interesting article here.