True, but the purity of the actors isn't the as important and the purity of the idea. All men and all nations are flawed. A world of democratic people, free of tyranny is the goal to strive for. You have to start somewhere, and Saddam seemed like the best, most doable, most effective step at the time.
How does one determine that attacking and invading Saddam's Iraq is more doable than demanding reform or progress from tyrants whose existance is directly linked to your consumption of their exports and who you were able to convince to join your coalition and use as the launching pad for your invasion and who lack any notable military defense? How does one come to the conclusion that Iraq is where this quest started after, by admittedly the least conservative estimates, tens of millions of people in dozens of countries have been massacred under the same pretext of spreading liberty and eliminating tyrants? Your intentions are/were noble and hindsight is 20/20, but I wish your foresight was slightly better. I also hope you don't still just chalk it up to weakness of human beings - maybe I'm over-reading that statement, but there are so many things we can do despite human weakness to get closer to your goal and stay further from this kind of mess. History has shown that progress is possible, but almost never by force.
It was doable. Everybody hated Saddam. And we were armed for bear, the military outcome (short of catastrophic casualties) was never in doubt. Everybody worldwide wanted in on winning a war. It's good for reelections everywhere; you get to have parades. '91 went great, shock and awe was awesome, toppling the statue was triumphant. Then it went to *****, then a lot of kids got f'd up. Good job, good effort. Live and learn, don't do that again. CIA Drones, don't care. Libya, Egypt, Syria ... all hands off, remote chaos management. One Ambassador and 2 Seals. Libya could work, it's almost Europe. Iran... I'd just Cold War 'em. Worked with the Russians.
