This probably off-topic here, but since you asked....
Going back to the response after September 11, which must be the genesis for this discussion. After Afghanistan was attacked and the Taliban toppled, Bush gave a speech. I think it was January 2002. It may or may not have been the State of the Union. In that speech he laid out his strategy concerning the war against the terrorists. Besides the typical you're with us or against us, if a country harbors terrorists, they are just as guilty, rhetoric, there was something else. He said something on the order of there needed to be a sea change in the middle east, that Madrasas could not be the only option. That hate could not be the only lesson available. I think this gives a glimmer of what Iraq was meant to be.
If you were going to take the offensive in the middle east, actually address the over-whelming hatred against the US that exists there, how would you do it? What could you possibly do to change it? Even a long shot. Clearly, what Clinton did, did not work. So, what else? Give them what they want and just leave? Order all commercial enterprises and US government installations shuttered and leave? That's not practical. So what?
The order of the day was a neo-con Hail Mary. You have to understand neo-cons worship at the alter of Democracy. I think they have a bit too much faith in that concept, but be that as it may, they believed they could flip a country make it a "shining city on a hill" make it an example. A choice for the restless young men of the middle east. Not immediately of course, but when all was said and done. Remember Bush told us this was a 50 year war. (Afghanistan is one battle in the war, Iraq is another battle in the war).
Ok, fair enough so let's see: I thought that the reason to go to Iraq was that they had weapons of mass destruction pointed at the US. Oh wait, no... it was that they were supporting Al-Qaeda. Oh wait, no, I'm wrong again, it was to topple the castrated Saddam regime. See, it's kinda hard to keep track of the different pretenses as it went on- but you already adressed this point: The administration was lying, but regardless of that it was in the interest of 'America' (begs the question, the interest of who in America?).
But see, here's my problem with the whole first part of the reasoning (Which I'm assuming is, but you can correct me if I'm wrong, that Bush was expecting that Iraqis would just be estatic over a US occupation, welcome them with open arms, let 'em topple Saddam, and then go about their day, electing a friendly government with no hassle, allowing American investment in, become a shining beacon of light in West Asia and North Africa- and that he actually believed this). My question to you is, where in the long history of American interventionism abroad has this
ever happened? What evidence would the Bush administration be able to give that such a thing would ever happen instead of what every single expert predicted, which was that it would explode in chaos and sectarian violence, increase terrorism in the region substantially, etc. (and that we now know that actually happened)? It just seems a bit of a stretch to me to assume that the Neo-Cons in Washington were risking so many lives (more than a million now, BTW) on complete faith, with no evidence of it ever happening, which kinda ties in to that second point of "How do we stop the hatred against us in the Middle East?" I'm also having trouble with this stance that the administration devised that to end the hatred that the population feel would be best to invade a country. I just don't see the connection. 'How do we help our standing in the Middle East?' 'Well, why not invade them?' I mean, the only way I can see the argument make sense is to assume that the leadership really was
that ridiculously stupid. Especially taking into account the gigantic irony that the same power that backed the brutal regime through it's worst attrocities was the invading power, and that really the same kind of people who backed it in the 80s were now in power to carry out this invasion. Maybe they
all have Alzheimer's, but did they assume that all the Iraqis had it too? Because unlike Americans, I really doubt they just forgot about that detail. I mean, you have to understand what I'm trying to say. If I wanted someone to not hate me, the last thing I'd think of is to invade their property with guns.
Brings me to the third point, again, I don't understand the statement about conservatives worshipping at the alter of democracy. Is there some historical record of this that I've never seen? I mean, where they worshipping democracy when they installed Pinochet in Chile, or supported Suharto through his brutal genocide in East Timor, or Somoza while he robbed Nicaragua dry (and let's not forget, proceeded to re-arm and re-fund his brutal military police to terrorize the goverment and population that toppled the monster?), or the dictatorial Shah in Iran, the Saudi absolute monarchy, Saddam himself as he gassed the Kurds, the genocidal Apartheid Regime in South Africa? I just kinda need some evidence of neo-cons bringing democracy anywhere to believe that their REAL aim was to bring democracy to Iraq. Maybe they were just 'born again'.
Ok, up to now those are my questions. now...
The question was which country? Iran or Syria? Both members of the "Axis of Evil," both terror supporters in their own rights. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the various Emirates dismissed because they were allies. Yeman? Too irrelevant. Other north African states too far on the periphery of the middle east, besides leverage could work on them (as in Libya). What about Iraq?
A country that lies in the middle of the middle east. A country with a secular background, less religious than other countries. A country with a strong, educated work force and some oil wealth. A country that had been weakened by sanctions for over 10 years.
So the question was which country? Which country what? What country they were going to make a shining beacon of light of democracy next? Alright, so here it kinda gets a little crazy. From what I understand (again, let me know if I'm wrong), the States had to go to war with
some country so that the people of the Middle East would stop hating them, they just had to decide what country. What they knew is that they wanted a war. And now they just had to pick the target. Can we at least agree how incredibly sinister this looks? A group of leaders in the US, who have a long and [less than] successful history of implementing democracy around the world, knew that they had to bring peace and democracy to this place by starting a war. So they picked the most pariah of the lot, weakest, and with "some oil". I wanna bring attention to this because "some oil" in this case is the second largest oil reserve in the world, with estimates that its somewhere over 110 billion barrels, that 90% remains unexplored (probably about 100 billion barrels more), and some of the cheapest production costs... not to mention lack of infrastructure. This is very important. I don't think it can just be sumarized as "some oil", or even "quite a bit of oil" or "a whole lot of oil". It's more like the 'Big Whoop' of oil.
I don't know, guys, it's just like, I wish that I could believe moreso that it really was the fact that they wanted peace and democracy in the middle east, but just their record on peace and democracy and their record in oil (the 2 top dogs heavily involved in the oil business in between administrations?), it just... I'm seriously trying to think of a way that the priorities would make sense the way you're telling the story, but it just doesn't.
Strategic Advantages:
Taking Iraq drives a wedge between Iran and Syria. It isolates Iran because we have Turkey and Turkmenistan in the north Occupied Afghanistan on one side, Occupied Iraq on the other. The US Navy controlling the Persian Gulf on another border. Perfect position to monitor one part of the Axis of Evil and add pressure to their government all around.
Syria is similarly isolated. Turkey to the north. Occupied Iraq, Israel only Lebanon and its puppet government was friendly, though that changed.
Taking Iraq meant instantly removing one malefactor from the middle east puzzle and at a minimum neutralizing it while we occupied it. With a little luck, it flips completely and we have another friendly country providing an axis across the middle east of Israel, Jordan and Iraq of friendly nations. Note how Saudi Arabia isn't in the list.
Ok, from here on it makes more sense. "strategically", we dive into the middle of the region. Ok.
Reasons for war besides the above sited abbreviated list of strategic advantages:
The sanctions were falling apart. (France was openly advocating for the removal of sanctions. Most other European countries were just ignoring them). The oil for food program was a corrupt joke. The Iraqi military routinely fired on allied planes patrolling the no fly zones. Without continued sanctions, Iraq would once again become resurgent adding one more problem into an already problematic middle east.
The question then was do we remove the sanctions and hope for a new casus belli or do we go with what we have or think we have? (It would have been pie in the sky to think that Saddam was going to just be a good citizen, so that was not an option to consider).
Ok, makes sense, the sanctions that obliterated the [tattered remains of] the Iraqi middle class were being ignored, so we gotta assume that Saddam wasn't going to be a good citizen. Well, by all means, Saddam was never a good citizen, with or without US backing, but is it really pie in the sky to think he was any threat to the US? He had been virtually castrated, his economy was dead, his worst attrocities far behind him. Admittedly, without the support he enjoyed in the 1980s from the US, he could really not do much in the way of gassing Kurds or battling Iranians. So to assume that he was plotting some sort of resurgence or that he would've actually gotten it and actually become a threat, there's really almost as much evidence for that as there is of the Bush administration's heart being set on bringing peace and democracy to Iraq.
My question was, why not tell the people what we are doing and why. Why use the WMD BS to justify the war. But, this was probably someone's bright idea that this is an easy mark. Everyone knew he had WMD, the hard part was making it look immediately dangerous. The only thing worse than the execution of the run up to war was the execution of the immediate aftermath of the military campaign. But, I think I'll stop here. I promised a why did we do Iraq essay, not a review of the entire war.
Ok, go ahead and fire away.
Ok, so let's assume that there is in fact much to gain strategically for America from an invasion of Iraq. It's true, they cut through the "axis of evil", encircle Iran, isolate syria, and, most importantly, gain control of the second largest oil reserves in the region.
Is it worth 5,000 Americans? or a million iraqi lives? or four million refugees- one of the worst humanitarian crises in history?
Is it fair to assume that the Bush administration wanted to on one hand "bring peace to iraq" while on the other "draw the terrorists to kill them there?" I don't know, but if I was an Iraqi, I wouldn't really want my country to be used as a fly swatter. In fact, hey, now that 1 out of every 7 people I knew is dead or exiled, there's no functioning economy, and my country's full of terrorists... hell, I might as well become one!
Kind of a dangerous road they took to peace, didn't they?
