[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by Pio1980

Getting back on topic, my theory if anyone cares to hear it is that Saddam Hussein was a gift from heaven to foreign policy hawks like the Neocons, who'd just publicly put the Middle East on notice with their Project for the New American Century. Not smart as it turned out as they do occasionally check the 'net over there.
Our position in Saudi as a base of operations had become politically untenable and we had to eventually un-ass the AO (leave) to keep the peace and good relations. The Iraqi situation presented the Hawks and oil/financial interests with a golden opportunity to keep boots in Middle East sand by occupying Iraq with some ruse of justification, and as a major bonus, we take over the oil fields to "stabilize them" and keep the stuff flowing out, and guess what? That pays the costs of all this at-home spending. The Iraqis (aren't they all the same?) are so grateful to be out from under the Hussein family's tyranny they hail us as liberating heroes. Win-win!! Except the "little people" in the margins of this equation failed to be predictably compliant to the oh-so-clever and well-conceived plan. Who-da thunk?? It blows up in our face as a major poorly thought-thru clusterfunk that persists to the present, they're glad to see Hussein gone but miss the enforced stability his tyranny ensured. The ongoing intermittent terror attacks and our indebtedness to the operation and ongoing indebtedness to the injured/disabled vets of this operation is the legacy, not to mention our loss of credibility thru the expenditure of good will squandered. The diversion of resources from Afghanistan proved disastrous. Nobody won-won.

+1 You have elaborated nicely on my drastically-simplified summary.