As much as I agree with this premise, how do we avoid the left saying this was not the primary reason given for going to Iraq and thus this is just rationalizing?
"As much as I agree with this premise, how do we avoid the left saying this was not the primary reason given for going to Iraq and thus this is just rationalizing?"
Not sure what "this" is, but the primary reason we went into Iraq was plain and compelling: to deny the terrorists access to WMD's believed to be available or under construction; to deny them safe haven; and to eliminate state sponsorship of terrorism in that state once and for all. GW has said this since his SOTU in January 2002.
The case for the presence of WMD's, specifically, was uniquely important in the UN, where resolutions offering international support were focussed on Saddam disarming.
The UN, remember, had no interest in fighting the WOT per se and would not have passed any resolutions based the other goals suggested. For purely domestic reasons it was thought that a full press for security council support was important, although the Bush doctine spelled out that it was not essential. The twist is that if GW were as "unilateral" as all the cowards maintain, he never would have bothered with the UN at all.
The case for instituting democracy was an outgrowth of the desire to prevent state sponsorship for terrorism in the future, to crater the rotten core of the Axis of Evil in the MidEast, and to create the conditions for peace and security for Israel.
None of this is new, and none of it is post-hoc--it has all been on the record in plain sight.
One irrelevancy at a time, please.