However misguided the Iraq War may have been . . . it attempts to attack the real root of the world's problems, which are always material. It was attempting to [change?] material conditions within the Islamic world, however hamhandedly.

You've got to be kidding me. I doubt there is anybody in the Bush administration who actually thought the Iraq War was about altering the material conditions of the Middle East. Certainly not Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, or any of the other main players. Hell, these people are themselves a corrupt authoritarian elite trying to turn US politics and society into something like the oligarchies they have in the Middle East. They cozy up to the very Saudi and Dubai oligarchs that you claim they are trying to supplant. Who are you kidding? The only ones who get whacked (Iraq, Iran, Syria) are the ones who don't toe the US line.

Sure, they'll say for public consumption that it's all about "democracy" or whatever, in order to give this fiasco a veneer of morality, and to give idiots like Tom Friedman an excuse to divide "liberal" opinion, but it's really about showing off to the world unilateral US military (and corporate -- don't forget about the oil, the contracting fiascos, the plans to neoliberalize the economy) power against (what was thought to be) the easiest target in the region. To show that the US is the 800-pound gorilla on the block.

Oh, and by the way for domestic political consumption too. It's always good politics to divide the Democrats with a war and convince "mainstream America" that the left "can't be trusted" with foreign policy. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

Those people don't give a damn about the Iraqi people or any other people in the Middle east.