The war was illegal and the removal of Saddam should have been left to the Iraqis Yet another puppet regime is not what the Middle East needs  Events from the Arab Spring have demonstrated, more graphically than anything else could have done, that Arab peoples are more than capable of dealing with their own dictators and do not need to be patronized by fading imperial powers.  Imagine what the situation in Iraq would be now following a genuinely democratic uprising rather than the imposition of yet another puppet regime by the West. Since the creation of the state of Iraq as a modern state by the British in 1932, a succession of rulers, of various stripes of dictatorial ruthlessness, have been brought in to ensure that the oil wealth continues to flow to Washington, London and other foreign capitals.  The allies were never interested in Iraqi freedom, this was yet another grab for oil and the results look set to be the same round of misery and tyranny for the people of Iraq.