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Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
I don't see why any of that supports your view (primary goal was regime change - wait, was this your view?) any more than it does mine (primary goal was securing a well-situated long-term troop base in region).
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Perhaps we need to slice this more finely. I think my view better describes George Bush's motivations, but your view may better describe the motivations of at least some of those working for him.
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I'll even throw in "sanctions & policing were not getting desired results and were really damn expensive and tended to make the US/UN look incapable of follow-through on threats," which argues for regime change regardless of other strategic goals, though in that view regime change itself could be seen as a mere tool for forwarding a different strategic goal in the WOT - beign seen in the islamic world as a bad-ass that would actually punish those who made themselves our enemies.
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I think the first half of this was key for Bush -- he had no patience for the continuing low-intensity war with Hussein, and wanted resolution. The second half of it is consistent with his thinking, but I'm not sure how much it motivated him.
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But the two goals are really quite complimentary; permitting relative instability in Iraq actually achieves both goals, the "keeping troops there" goal particularly. In fact, if the US hadn't set itself up as the savior of international democracy, we could have quite a convenient arrangement, as we do in Afghanistan, where we aren't really doing much by way of providing security but have a fairly free hand in the outskirts of the country to conduct raids into neighboring hostile territory. (Hmm, I'm beginning to see the logic of Stratfor's position more and more.)
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I understand that there's a certain logic to this, particularly if you think our greatest enemies are likely to be unsympathetic, capable states. But this is lunacy if you think our greatest enemies are the sort of terrorist movements (for example) that are fed and make use of failed states. And I think Bush truly believes in the goal of making Iraq a successful democracy, whereas you seem to be thinking it's a PR conceit.
