I had a lefty friend who had a 'taking the center of the board' chess analogy for why he thought we went in Iraq. I didn't get it at first. Upon further reflection, he may be right. What better place to concentrate both our efforts and their efforts in this global confrontation? Analogous to Bush's "Taking the war to them" speach...Didn't Sun Tzu say something about if you know you have to fight the next most important things to decide are when and where to fight?
Picking Iraq as the "center of the board" makes sense. Osama was dug in in Afghanistan, so we had to start the fight there-but pulling the battle line into Iraq gives us a better advantage for these reasons:
1)Saddam was an ongoing & serious threat to us and the region. He defied the UN and there was a real potential he would ally with OSAMA.
2)Iraq had at least the framework of an infrastructure with cities, modern conveniences and the oil fields to support them. Afghanistan, on the other hand, is geographically, one of the most inhospitable battlegrounds in the world.
3) Iraqis are more educated and more tolerant than other ME populaces and they had been brutally repressed for decades under Saddam so they were ready for freedom.
4) We knew we had to keep a huge fighting force in the ME
while we looked for the rats nest that was Al Queda & our air bases had closed Saudi Arabia so using Iraq as a staging place was sound.
I just don't understand why some people say our forces should fight terror only in Afghanistan...that would put us at a big disadvantage.