I think it was ultimately foolish to invade in the name of establishing a democracy; first, because in that part of the world, voting for “freedom” or “liberty” or whatever constructs of democracy come to mind are apostasy over the worship of Mohammed. It is that simple. The hardest thing to get people to do is to dump their religion. This has been proven throughout all of human history over many religions. To get them to renounce Islam in favor of a Western set of idea(l)s that they hate and do not subscribe, in the format of an invasion and conquest is even harder. I think any 2nd year student of Arab studies could have seen this. But the geniuses in our government, The phd’s, could not.
Second, the idea that you are going to establish a democracy in an area where the people have had zero experience with it, have the kill-or-be-killed and steal whatever you can ethos of Islam and NONE of the morality that ALL the founders saw and knew would be required to establish and maintain our form of govt; was naive. Most of these nations were observably controlled effectively when and where they had a brutal dictator in charge. We don’t understand this calculus and we still don’t. We were obviously not going to go in and become tyrannical. But this is what these countries are used to. We can like it, we can decry it, but it is a fact. Denying facts is a tough business.
Third, Saddam may have had WMD, probably did, but I never understood why they constituted a threat to the US. Additionally, Saddam could have been manipulated to shepherd his weapons in ways that would have revealed their presence and locations by a campaign of subtle harassment the threat of overwhelming retaliation.
Fourth, the US had the best thing going as far as that part of the world when Iraq and Iran were at war and IMO that condition should have been encouraged, ghoulish as it may sound. Additional succor could have been extracted from the Saudis if the Bush admin was clever enough to manipulate instead of being manipulated by Wolfowitz et al. They just weren’t that smart. They thought they stood on a righteous and superior pedestal, much like liberals do. They were mistaken.
Its been how history has played out and the Trump campaign made it pretty clear just how scummy the Bushes and those in their orbit. Now I don't even know if Obamas approach wasn't better as we didn't have new causalities everyday for that pile crap called Iraq.
Regardless we have had terrible foreign policy and bad leadership since Reagan - that is why Trump is here and boy howdy how all the Bushes, Clintons, McCain and Obamas can unite to take him out the one person who makes senses and seems likely to end this endless war.