You might remember that the US royally fucked up the process after taking him off the board.

Both Syria and Lebanon have managed, in the past, to work out a way for their various regions and tribal/ethnic groups to co-exist.

Wasn't a large part of that caused by the de-Baathification of the government and security forces?

And Iranian / Syrian funded militias.

And the same in Libya.

The Libyan war is just some bullshit to keep oil prices low, its very close to being a manufactured situation

Same could be argued about the last 100 years of the region. West doesn't give a shit about these countries as long as they keep selling oil (in dollars).

West propped and props up Islamism (and other tyrannies) to prevent nationalisations of oil resources. Seems to be mostly working as intended.

>It didn’t turn out well when we took him off the board.

No? The post-invasion process turned into a simmering insurgency followed by a loose civil war, but since then and so far, Iraq has stabilized into a more or less functional state in which investment is growing and living standards are again moving upwards. I don't see how the automatic response of "it didn't turn out well" applies. The shaky morality of a historical decision (invasion and toppling Saddam in this case) doesn't necessarily translate to a bad outcome in the long run.