[expatpat]

I agree with you regarding the aircraft-carrier analogy -- that it was part of the reason. However, I don't agree with your penultimate paragraph.

The democracy thing was a true reason (though ambitious), based on the idea that democratic states don't often attack other states. The WMD thing was also real (look at the 1995-2002 comments of even Pelosi and both Clintons -- everyone felt he was a real danger, mostly to Israel and our Arab 'allies').

[Frobenius]

...he (President Bush) said we needed to destroy the (apparently) non-existant or at least minimal WMD program;...

The Iraqi WMD program was clearly massive in the 1980s/1990's when Israel attacked the Osiraq reactor and when the Kurds were gassed.

I agree that the Iraqi WMD program was very real but it is not so clear exactly how large it was in 2003. I believe that it had probably, for the most part, been "moth balled".

I believe that it was probably fairly small when we attacked - not that that really mattered...