Oh, good. I don’t know how I missed it. The “brutal tyrant” thing is not by itself a reason to overthrow a government, (unless you’re looking for an excuse). We’ve tolerated and still do some brutal regimes. You don’t see us getting mixed up in Darfur. Just because the Iraqis don’t want to be dominated by Iran doesn’t mean they will have any choice. There will not be a functional government (unless we find a new brutal tyrant) and the Iranians will simply dominate, just like they did in 2005-07. They just have to wait for us to leave. And that day will have to come, because we can’t stay forever. I can’t see a single national interest of ours that was improved by the invasion of Iraq. We had Hussein under control. We had no fly zones, we had sanctions in place, we had UN inspectors on the ground. We had an excuse to maintain a large presence in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait(ostensibly to protect against Iraq). We had a counter to Iran AND Al Qaeda (contrary to reports, Hussein feared Al Qaeda).

Now, in the aftermath, we have a very shaky government in place that probably cannot survive our withdrawal, thousands of casualties, hundreds of billions spent, a tarnished national image (we used to be the good guys until Abu Ghraib). What did we actually win?