Why We Went to Iraq

Some say we went to Iraq to get Saddam Hussein’s weapons. Others say we’re there to establish a foothold of democracy in the Middle East. A smaller number say it was our exit strategy from Saudi Arabia.
All those reasons are valid. A good decision is rarely right for one reason alone. Good decisions can be justified on all manner of different grounds.
Still, there is one over-riding reason we went to war in Iraq, and it’s the one reason hardly anyone wants to talk about. It isn’t even remotely politically correct or nice or diplomatic. But that’s just too bad. Life isn’t a game of Model UN.
The real reason can be explained in two ways. First, here is Banagor (via Winds of Change).

The reason we are fighting this war is not because nineteen hijackers crashed into a burning building and a handful of others cheered, but because the entire Muslim world not only cheered, but then turned around, pointed at “The Jews” and said that it was their fault, denied they ever did it, denied that it ever could be them, screamed that they hated us anyway, danced in the streets, printed up posters about the heroes who did the deed all while denying they ever really did, and then increased their threats to tell us that if they didn’t get more capitulations that it would happen yet again.

And here is Thomas Friedman in Slate.

The real reason for this war—which was never stated—was to burst what I would call the “terrorism bubble,” which had built up during the 1990s.
This bubble was a dangerous fantasy, believed by way too many people in the Middle East. This bubble said that it was OK to plow airplanes into the World Trade Center, commit suicide in Israeli pizza parlors, praise people who do these things as “martyrs,” and donate money to them through religious charities. This bubble had to be burst, and the only way to do it was to go right into the heart of the Arab world and smash something—to let everyone know that we, too, are ready to fight and die to preserve our open society. Yes, I know, it’s not very diplomatic—it’s not in the rule book—but everyone in the neighborhood got the message: Henceforth, you will be held accountable. Why Iraq, not Saudi Arabia or Pakistan? Because we could—period. Sorry to be so blunt, but, as I also wrote before the war: Some things are true even if George Bush believes them.

Yeah, I know. This is dangerous bloodthirsty warmonger stuff penned by everyone’s favorite New York Times punching bag. That doesn’t make it not so. Some things are true even if Thomas Friedman believes them.
We have Gaddafi capitulating over weapons of mass destruction. The Iranian mullahs and the nutcase in North Korea are backing down (at least in public) on their own weapons procurement. And now via Roger L. Simon we learn that Syria’s Bashar Assad splits with Hezbollah and offers to negotiate with Israel without preconditions.
It isn’t at all likely that Boy Assad would suddenly cave if Saddam Hussein had successfully stood down America.
Fighting a war in Iraq may very well prevent us from fighting other wars someplace else. Getting tough gets results.
And as Dennis Miller recently said on CNN:

I feel more politically engaged than I’ve ever felt in my life because I do think we live in dangerous times, and anybody who looks at the world and says this is the time to be a wuss—I can’t buy that anymore.