There are two things that I don't like about Mr. Trump.  First, he thinks that everybody in government is stupid.  Second, he thinks that he is really smart.  I guess that I just don't like people like that, even if we can agree on some issues.

On Iraq, Mr. Trump is not as clear as he claims.

For example, he said that he was always opposed to the war, but no such opposition can be found. 

Is there a March 2013 speech opposing the war?  No. 

Did he say that Saddam Hussein should stay in power as a counterbalance to Iran?  No, he didn't back in 2003-05!

What we do know is that Mr. Trump made a statement in 2004, or 18 months after the war started.  This is from Michael Calderone:

The media has largely given Trump a pass for his suggestion that he was the lone voice of dissent about the war, long after the U.S. invasion. Several journalists noted during real-time debate coverage online and on Twitter that the Iraq War started over a year before he said he was against it. But similar fact-checking has been absent from recent TV news interviews, in which Trump has seized upon his summer 2004 position to trumpet his foreign policy foresight as he campaigns to be the next commander-in-chief. 

There's some evidence Trump wasn't happy with the war effort early on. About a week after the March 19, 2003 invasion, he described the war as a “mess” when The Washington Post approached him at an Oscar after-party. 

But recently, Trump has primarily cited an article published by Reuters in July 2004 -- entitled "Donald Trump Would ‘Fire’ Bush Over Iraq Invasion" -- to illustrate his farsightedness about the war.

The oft-cited Reuters story doesn't provide a comprehensive look at Trump’s foreign policy worldview. It’s a brief article that references his comments in an Esquire cover story published the same week. The Daily News, and other outlets, also ran stories quoting Trump’s provocative comments to Esquire.

In the Esquire interview, Trump called the Iraq War a “mess," while also harshly criticizing how the Bush administration handled it. He dismissed the idea of Iraq becoming truly democratic, and predicted the U.S. withdrawal would lead to “a revolution, and the meanest, toughest, smartest, most vicious guy will take over.”

It would be helpful for Mr Trump to drop the cheap shots against President Bush, a man whom we understand he voted to re-elect. 

We would be better-served to hear about the region in 2015.  In other words, the real mess in Iraq began when we left in 2011 and started drawing lines in 2012.

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