Ok, I've taken all I can stand in this thread:
I don't have a complete grasp of the international politics involved,
You can say that again. You complain that we didn't use diplomacy after 10 years of UN sanctions, weapons inspectors and oil for food programs? What the hell would you call it if not diplomacy? It didn't work and then 9/11 changed the playing field forever.
You can't force a people's movement, you can't invade a country set up a new government with strong ties to American Companies, and create an occupation that is just as oppressive, if not more so, than the previous one then expect those people to sit by and watch and accept it.
Are you insane or are you really calling the Coalition presence in Iraq an occupation that's worse than Saddam's regime? Step away from the Daily Kos and do a little research into what's actually happening over there. I can tell you from personal, on the ground, eyeball experience that the people in Iraq desperately want to live in a Democracy and are willing to fight and die for that chance. So take your, "you can't force a people's movement" and shove it up your ass.
The powers that be have taken the Vietnam playbook and ran with it. That didn't end well for any involved, but for some reason they think that this one will work out better. Perhaps they truly don't care how it ends up, again much like Vietnam.
The only way the war in Iraq will end up like Vietnam is if we suddenly back out on our promises and commitments to the people on the ground and abandon them to the murderous terrorists they're fighting, with our help, right now. That's obviously what you want so spare me your crocodile tears for the innocents you're so anxious to abandon to the tender mercies of Jihad.
As for the whole "Iraq had nothing to do with Al Quaeda, Iraq was an unnecessary war" crowd. I respectfully disagree.
The Middle East is a vast teeming throng of people who have a storied and proud history. Considering the wealth that has been pouring into that area for the last 50 years they should be lounging about swimming pools or washing their SUVs while they think about how to get the next promotion or put Janny through college. Instead, they live in chicken coops, are barely literate and have no hope for their children beyond, usually, an early death from some trivial disease, long conquered in the west. This, understandably, pisses them off no end. It pisses me off and I don't even live there. "So what went wrong?" they ask themselves. "Damnit, where is the money for roads and hospitals and schools? " The obvious answer, of course, is it's sitting in bank accounts belonging to their rulers, despotic dictators all.
This poses a problem for the dictators. If the people they rule are allowed to draw and act on these conclusions, they stand to lose their power and privilege through bloody revolution. This is, of course, unacceptable, so a suitable target must be found. America is the obvious answer considering our involvement in the region over oil, but more importantly, the high visibility of our cultural exports. The fact that we advocate a lifestyle that is anathema to the religious zealots of the region is simply a bonus, since it automatically legitimizes anti-american rhetoric by striking that vast religious gong.
There is not a snowball's chance in hell that we could peacefully influence most Middle-Eastern regimes to liberalize in less than many decades. Those regimes know very well that the reason their people haven't twigged to their blame-shifting, "It's America not me!" is because they have the kind of iron control of the media and everything else that allows them to dictate what their people hear and believe. Even the most vanilla liberalization would undermine that control enough for their own people to turn on them. Not acceptable.
So let's take several decades dang it! Just let them stew and allow toothless sanctions to gum away at the dictators' will to power. It'll work eventually, right? Unfortunately, that stopped being an option on 9/11. Suddenly the fruits of that Middle Eastern Dictator's power hungry rhetoric turned into a direct threat to civilians in our country. I was not surprised on 9/11. I saw it or something like it coming. If anything, I was surprised it had taken so long. Next time it could be a nuke, or sarin gas, or a weaponized biological. With those kinds of threats on the horizon, we no longer had decades to sweetly wait for the dictators to see reason.
The benefits of democracy and capitalism can be summarized by the phrase: "We have never been attacked by a country with a McDonalds." (I don't know who made that observation or I'd give them credit) So how do you spread McDonalds in the Middle-East? Well, since the Jihadists would resist the McDonalds campaign with guns, you have to lead with your own guns, and while you're at it, why not pick a country with a history of secularism, like Iraq? (Just to clarify I'm listing Iraq's history of secularism as a reason TO invade that country instead of somewhere else) Iraq was the most likely source of WMDs for the terrorists at the time, they were still in non-compliance with a UN resolution calling for military action in response to non-compliance, we felt bad about abandoning the revolutionaries in '92, we had basing rights on their southern border, their official military was a known and pathetic quantity, etc...
Given the threat and the need for steps to prevent further action on our own soil, Iraq was an excellent choice of venue.