I think one of the main reasons for the Iraq war lie in a philosophical vision of the neo conservatives, who dominate the foreign policy establishment, is the belief that the United States does dominate the world as the world's only superpower, that it must assert it's power, globally, everywhere, and that anyone who resists it or defies American power, is absolutely unacceptable, and becomes, automatically, very much the enemy.

The theory that you can bludgeon political grievances out of existance, doesn't have much of a track record, and essentially, we have been neo-conned by this administration.

This war had nothing to do with terrorism. There was no connection between Iraq and the religious fanatics that perpetrated 911. Saddam Hussein is not a fool. He's a terrible villain, yes, but why would he risk sacrificing his own life and country to terrorists who had completely opposite views to his own?
Iraq was a highly centralized dictatorship, why would Saddam ever want to give up control of that to scatterings of terrorist organizations? He would loose that control. Do you really think
Saddam would trust his fate to OBL and his nihilistic ways??
I don't think so!!