“Fairly simple. The UN and coalition war aim was to drive Saddam out of Kuwait. Had Saddam been dethroned, we would have had something similar to the insurgency of 2005 to 2007, just 15 years earlier.”
I do not agree.
We were already into Iraq and on the way to Baghdad, smashing his army.
We could have knocked him out as easy as swatting a fly, and in the process, avoided the WMD debacle, as well as the cost in men and money in starting a whole new war.
It would have been so much easier to clean up the whole mess by finishing the FIRST war.
You are looking at it from a purely military standpoint. I agree with you as far as that goes.
What you propose is that we should have violated our commitments to the other coalition partners and changed objectives in mid-stride. In particular, the Arab members of the coalition would be understandably concerned if an outsider suddenly decides he has the right to change Arab regimes at a whim.
The big question is what happens after Saddam’s army is destroyed and he is dethroned.
Did we want to occupy Iraq at the time? No.
If we destroy a government, are we responsible to do something to handle the situation we created? Yes. I believe this is actually part of international law. The winning party is responsible for maintaining order until a replacement government can be stood up.
IOW, the issue was not whether we could overthrow the Iraqi regime, it’s what comes next.