From KeralaNext.com, with thanks to Nicolei:
On the eve of a visit to Britain, President Jacques Chirac said Wednesday that the world was more dangerous because of the American-led invasion of Iraq.
“To a certain extent Saddam Hussein’s departure was a positive thing,” Mr. Chirac said in an interview broadcast on the BBC Newsnight television program. “But it also provoked reactions, such as the mobilization in a number of countries of men and women of Islam, which has made the world more dangerous.”
Ensuring that his country’s relations with the United States and Britain will remain cool, he said, “There is no doubt” that terrorism around the world has increased because of the war in Iraq.
Chirac may not have noticed, but jihad terrorism was already quite active in the world before the invasion of Iraq. If the Iraq war actually made any peaceful Muslim turn warlike, he most likely already held to the principles of violent jihad. The core problem is that one who holds those principles can latch onto virtually any pretext; if it weren’t Iraq, it would be something else.
Ultimately, Chirac’s argument is as cogent as saying that the Normandy invasion bred Nazis, or that Ronald Reagan’s strong stand against the Soviet Union (after years of detenteism and weakness) bred Communists. History disproves it.