The French position in 2002 may have been a bit cynical but would probably have saved lots of life: Saddam Hussein may be a scum-bag but at least he was holding the country together and keeping Sunni and Shia from killing each others. Same for Gaddafi, Al Assad, Ben Ali, etc. That being said all dictators fall or die sooner or later, and a lot of the troubles in the middle-east have more to do about ethnic hatred than about religious extremism. We could possibly have delayed it but perhaps not prevented it.