When that war started, the idea was to take the war to where the terrorists are, and to keep them away from American soil. It worked for us. The terrorists swarmed Iraq and we fought them there. (It is always good to be able to pick your battle ground.) They were slowly but surely taken down by our brave soldiers. We have not been attacked again. And we have planted democracy in a very dry piece of earth. It will be up to the Iraqis to keep it. Peace is achieved through strength, and so is our national security. I know that sounds like a cliche, but it is a reality that you can observe in daily life as well as on the battlefield.
The idea of the invasion of Iraq was to split the terrorists on two different fronts, one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. The strategy worked. It was purely a military strategy, not a political one. The political strategy came after the military strategy and as a result of that strategy.