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Joan, you believe history will prove Bush right, but be unkind to him, regarding the Iraq war? I'm sorry, but history can only say something nice if the result is going to lead to the principles that the historian values (e.g. greater regional peace, economic progress, etc.), but the future of Iraq looks at least as bleak now as it did before the invasion.
Prior to the invasion, we were seeing an end-of-life dictator in a frenzy of paranoia -- a disease common in despots left to fester, whether they're Mugabe or Pinochet -- and the likelihood that one despot would be replaced by another, or by an invasion by Iran. Now, we're looking at a series of weak, venal, and transient leaders who are trying to hold the nation together by balancing pay offs with hatred. The natural, or customary, follow up to that is the emergence of a strong man or a path of genocidal civil war. If something emerges after that, there is no telling what it will be.
As for whether Bush will be personally correct, that's going to depend on why he invaded. In six years, we haven't heard a compelling reason. We haven't heard a reason that can survive even the most cursory analysis. Even the paranoid and cynical explanations do not hold up. While his father worked a possibly sophisticated Panama Deception, this president has only worked an Iraqi Self-Deception, at best, and if a nation went to war over the private delusions of a single individual, it means that we have no democracy at all. History will not smile at that.
