[KarlInOhio]

I still hold to the idea that the primary reason for invading Iraq was to put the last block into surrounding Iran because it is the major bad actor in the Islamic world. The Taliban was removed from Afghanistan. Turkey was an ally. Pakistan was nominally an ally. Inroads were being made with the former Soviet republics north of Iran. That left Iraq as Iran's only unguarded border. We expected to have a relatively easy time removing Saddam (check) along with an easy time controlling Iraq afterward (nope). I think the second is because we didn't expect Iran to see this move as threatening them and grossly underestimated their response.

[MNJohnnie]

I still hold to the idea that the primary reason for invading Iraq was to put the last block into surrounding Iran because it is the major bad actor in the Islamic world

Makes a lot of sense to me.