Of course we did. If we had just run Iraq as a protectorate/colony, it would have been pretty subdued in 2006 but Bush had an admirable vision of trying to turn it into a permanent democracy. I’m not sure if that’s possible, but I think it was worth a try-—again, especially with the Iran scenario.
You don't "try" anything after pissing away thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in a military engagement like that. You defeat the enemy, subdue it, and do whatever it takes to make sure it can't threaten you for at least 200 years.
This was how the U.S. waged wars that it actually tried to win.
The most pathetic aspect of the story was that Joe Biden (of all people) was saying as far back as 2006 that breaking Iraq into three parts was probably the most viable solution over there. It takes a special kind of stupidity for a Republican administration to make a guy like Joe Biden with his room-temperature IQ look like a genius.