Since blue jay seems to be the only conservative arguing here and comes across as an idiot, I feel I must jump in. The truth is, we did have the right to go into Iraq if we wanted to. Sadaam was making a joke out of the sanctions and was taking pot shots at us as we patroled the no-fly zone. In my opinion, though, the reason we went was because Israelwas getting pissed off about all the suicide bombers and the fact that Sadaam was paying off their families. Think how mad we were about 911. If you look at the numbers, the percentages of Israelies affected by suicide bombers is much higher then Americans affected by 911. The numbers would indicated that most people would personally know of someone affected by a bomber.
There is no way that the US wants Israel to do anything in the Middle East. While it might be nice to say let them fight their own battles, the truth is if they do it is likely the whole middle east could go up in flames. There is no way Israel is going to lose a war without putting up a couple of nukes at some point. From an oil dependency side we could never allow this. When there were problems in Lebanon with Hezbollah last year, Israel kept coming out with statements like, unless something changes, we are going to do something. The statements kept getting stronger. I think these statements were towards Bush, but the political pressures here kept him from doing anything. Luckly the problem got solved before Israel did something.
Bush, agian this is my opinion, felt he had to come up with a different reason for attacking Iraq then defending Israel, as this reason would upset the rest of the middle east and possible cause a widescale involvement of other countries. At best it probably would mean the end of relatively good relations with the Saudi's and probably a disruption of oil to the US. If Bush had half a brain he would have planned a good reason for going into Iraq. At best he could have planted something for us to find when we got there. The whole scenario has left us looking like idiots.

In the end, we are probably going to be there for years to come. The only real solution is to split the country. Unfortunately this would leave one side in control of the oil reserves and expecting them to honor any agreement to share the wealth is a joke. The people of Iraq will never love each other and get along. That's why a person like Sadaam is the only type of leader that will ever suceed. The only hope we have of keeping peace is to separate the sides into separate sides with a central government that is kept in check by us. Hopefully we won't allow big US interests to control the wealth, but will actually allow the wealth to trickle down to the masses. I would guess the young masses would much rather sit at home and play nintendo then kill themselves or each other. It is the same everywhere though; take away hope and people will have no regard for their own future. Even in the US it is evident. During the great economy of the clinton years we saw a drop in gang violence, teen drug use and teen pregnancy. The last couple of years, as the economy has soured some, we have seen a new surge in gang violence.

In short, we had to go, we have to stay. The way we accomplish this and express it really needs to change though. Bush's way is idiotic and has caused us problems and lack of respect. Bush is not a true conservative. Rather he is a big business moderate. This mortgage fiasco is just a perfect example of executives taking huge short term gains at the expense of their stockholders. Watch now as they figure out a way to get the government to bail out the banks to their advantage. Way off topic, but my point would be that you can probably expect the same if you elect any of the mainstream candidates, from either side.