HEY, DO YOU REMEMBER THE GULF WAR OF 1991?

Remember how President Saddam Hussein of Iraq sent his army to invade his neighbor to the south, Kuwait?

Those were simpler times, weren’t they? I mean, everything was so clear cut. Hussein was the bad guy, President Bush (not “W,” the actual presidential President Bush) was the good guy, and poor little Kuwait — a country of oil-rich, peace-loving sheiks — was the innocent party who’d been wronged through no fault of their own.

It was so easy back then to see which guys were wearing the white hats, er, turbans, and which were wearing the black ones.

And don’t we just love that? I mean to be able to tell at a glance which side to root for and which to vilify? Sure, things got a little obfuscated for a minute there when it turned out Iraq may have run their intentions by the U.S. ambassador, April Glaspie, and that she may have even given them tacit approval.

And yeah, it was true that Kuwait (which Iraq referred to as its “19th Province”) had been part of Iraq until 1922 when the United Kingdom, which controlled that area, drew an arbitrary border between the two territories.

But still, the whole good guy/bad guy sequence of events seemed pretty clear to all of us back here in the States, didn’t it?

Hussein, with his “million-man army” and his big ol’ Russian tanks (he’d been an ally of the Soviets, which made him even evil-er) versus George H.W. “Line in the Sand” Bush who declared that “This will not stand” and told Saddam to get out of Kuwait or else.

In fact it was all SO clear cut that almost 40 other nations around the world joined the coalition and helped us in Operation Desert Storm as we trounced the million-man army and left the Iraqi/Russian tanks smoldering hulks in the desert.

Ah, good times, eh?

But then, a little more than a decade later, the second President Bush, under the tutelage of such fine Americans as Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and Don Rumsfeld, decided America was in dire need of the back-slapping, feel-good times that our first foray into the Fertile Crescent brought us.

You see, things had become pretty bleak here at home because a group named al Qaeda, led by a fella named Bin Laden, had rammed planes full of innocent Americans into buildings full of more innocent Americans. We were furious, and saddened, and rightly so. And Bush 2 and his crew knew it. That small cadre understood it was time for action — decisive action. So they went after Bin Laden’s al Qaeda, which was holed up along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, in — where?

That’s right — Iraq!

And, well, that’s when things got a bit messy. That whole “coalition” thing we had going for us in the first Iraq war? Well we had a coalition in the second war, too, but this time, rather than almost 40 countries, the number was more like 4 (one of which was Poland, which sent 194 fightin’ Poles to help us give old Saddam another good walloping).

And then it turned out maybe we’d made up some of that whole “Weapons of Mass Destruction” business we used as a reason for invading. And that maybe when W sent his secretary of State, Colin Powell, to the UN to make a case for invading Iraq, perhaps Powell had overstated how sinister the aluminum tubing in the satellite pictures actually was.

Turns out it had way more to do with mass irrigation than mass destruction.

Well, anyway, that second sojourn to Iraq went pretty badly. Don’t get me wrong, we kicked butt, we took names, and we swaggered (“Mission Accomplished,” anyone?) but it all somehow didn’t feel quite right, did it?

And then, after a while, it felt really wrong.

The terrorist group that had attacked us from the Afghan border was still doing just fine, thank you very much, and their leader Bin Laden was continuing to accrue birthdays. What it seemed we really did was ensure that al Qaeda would have no shortage of recruits in the years to come.

Oh wait, there was one more thing: After we disposed of Saddam Hussein, things began looking up for a certain sectarian majority of Iraqis. How was that, you ask?

Here’s how.

Iraq is a very religious, very Muslim country. But there are two dominant, contrasting denominations of Islam there, Shia and Sunni. Iraq is majority Shia. But Hussein was Sunni — as were his cronies. They were a minority government.

And they weren’t very nice to the majority.

Saddam was well known for doing all sort of unspeakable things to his enemies, most of whom were Shiites. For a lot of years the Shia were second-class citizens in Iraq. But then W was good enough to come along, chase Saddam down a “spider hole” and allow the interim post-war government to hang him.

And the Shia Muslims were pretty OK with that.

In fact it was they who did the hanging as Saddam spewed out his last anti-Shia sentiments. And they hung him on what was a holy day for Sunnis — coincidence or insult? Probably doesn’t really matter anymore — but are you starting to see a pattern here?

I hope any pattern you’re beginning to glimpse includes at least an inkling of thoughts like, “Hey, maybe these two religious factions should be in separate countries from one another.” Or, “Maybe things would be more peaceful if these people, who can barely tolerate each other, were not next-door neighbors.”

If you thought those things — you’re right. That would be better. So how then did they come to live together, you might ask?

Remember how I said earlier that it was the British who drew the border between Kuwait and Iraq? Well actually they created more than just that border. After World War One, during which the Brits and their allies (yes, us) defeated the Ottoman Empire as well as the Germans, they inherited the lands of the Middle East that the Ottomans had previously controlled.

For hundreds and hundreds of years.

During which time the Ottomans had become fully aware of competing religious factions. And how you shouldn’t force them to live together. But the Brits? They either didn’t know or didn’t care about such things because they drew a border around what is now present-day Iraq grouping both the Shia and the Sunni together. Thereby pretty much ensuring misery and violence for decades to come.

You gotta love the British.

And now a few words about the title of this week’s column. Anyone here remember that Saturday morning show back in the ’70s called “The Secrets of Isis”? It’s the one where the heroine called out “Oh Mighty Isis!” to channel her superpowers.

Well it’s not in reference to that. Wait, it sort of is — but here’s what it’s really in reference to: As you may be aware, a violent group of radical revolutionaries has been traveling across northern Iraq toward Baghdad over the last few months, leaving death and destruction in its wake. That group is known as ISIS — or at least they were until recently, when they apparently changed their name from ISIS to Islamic State of Iraq.

ISIS (or the anarchists formerly known as ISIS) is led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and he is quiet capable of all the despicability — and perhaps then some — of old Saddam Hussein himself. In fact al Qaeda — which helped spawn ISIS — has since disowned them because they’re too violent!

Now that’s violent.

So they’ve been rolling across northern Iraq toward the capital and seat of government Baghdad with great success and surprisingly weak opposition. Wait, maybe “surprisingly” is not the right word here. You see ISIS is a Sunni Muslim organization. Northern Iraq is a Sunni Muslim region.

You do the math.

Anyhow, ISIS is on its way to confront the Shia Muslim government in the capital. And hey, the Shia have had a good run since we brought down the Sunni-led government — but their days may be numbered.

Or maybe not.

It’s hard to say as I sit here on my big plush couch tapping out my column. I really don’t know what’s going to happen in Iraq — truth is, none of us do. But I do know this: I think maybe it’s time we stay out of there for a while — and yes, that means no more troops.

Though I did see where the president just sent a couple hundred U.S. soldiers to help shore up our embassy in Baghdad. My prediction is that they’re probably really there to cover our retreat.

A retreat that’s long overdue.

Benicia resident John P. Gavin is the author of “Online Dating Sucks… but it’s how I fell in love.” You can find it at onlinedatingsucksbook.com or at amazon.com/dp/B009ZYYDVE.