It was more a reference to the whole "History of the Middle East, 1870-1960" thing, wherein Europe got its empire building thing on, redrew national boundaries, set up new governments, and generally made a hash of things before deciding it wasn't fun anymore and abruptly exiting the region, leading to the power vacuum the US stepped into in the 1950s.

Which doesn't change the fact that the US had no business invading Iraq in 2003 and probably should have stayed out of Afghanistan as well, but pretending Europe -- Germany near the top of the list -- had no role in creating the situation there is silly.